Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o' Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ROYAL WAREHOUSEMEN CLERKS AND
DRAPERS' SCHOOLS BILL [Lords]

TEES CONSERVANCY (DEPOSIT OF DREDGED MATERIAL) BILL [Lords]

HARTLEPOOL PORT AND HARBOUR BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

"to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act,1936, relating to the British Transport Commission," presented by Mr. J. Stuart; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 138.]

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY (OCCUPATION COSTS)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what agreement has been reached with the West German Government on the subject of occupation costs after 1st July last, when the present arrangements expired.

The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Discussions between the allied authorities and the Federal Government about the arrangements for occupation costs after 1st July, 1954, are now taking place. I regret that I cannot yet tell the hon. and gallant Member any more.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that the belated completion of this arrangement has not been held up by the truculent ultimatum of the German Chancellor last Friday?

Mr. Lloyd: The position of Her Majesty's Government is fully preserved in the meantime.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY ATTACHE, MEXICO CITY

Captain Kerby: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the last date upon which Her Majesty's Military Attaché at Mexico City visited Tegucigalpa and Guatemala; the duration of his stay in both capitals; and if he is satisfied that this officer can deal effectively with the military aspects and potentialities of the seven Republics to which he is accredited.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The former Military Attaché at Her Majesty's Embassy at Mexico City visited Guatemala from 3rd May to 8th May and the capital of Honduras from 9th May to 10th May of this year. His successor, who arrived at Mexico City on 28th May has been trying for some time to reach Guatemala City, but has not yet reported his arrival.
The arrangement by which this officer is appointed to seven Republics is normally satisfactory and must be accepted, given the need for economy in Government expenditure overseas.

Oral Answers to Questions — GUATEMALA

Her Majesty's Representative

Mr. Marquand: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why Her Majesty has been represented in Guatemala by a Chargé d'Affaires during the present emergency; and what steps he has taken to secure representation by a fully-accredited Minister.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Mr. W. H. Gallienne, who had been Minister at Guatemala City since 1947, left on 17th March to take up his appointment as Ambassador to Cuba. His successor, Mr. R. H. S. Allen, left the United Kingdom on 29th May, but owing to the disruption of communications, he was not able to reach his post until 2nd July.

Mr. Marquand: Does not that answer, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer to the previous Question, show that Her Majesty's Government were grievously lacking in information about all the affairs that took place in


Guatemala at this time? Will not the right hon. and learned Gentleman undertake to publish as a White Paper the full information that he obtained either from the Guatemalan Government or from such representatives as he may have had in Guatemala during that period?

Mr. Lloyd: I should like to repudiate straight away any suggestion that Her Majesty's Government were not appropriately represented during this period. Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires was a very experienced and able officer, and I am perfectly certain that he represented us in the best possible manner.

Mr. Attlee: Had the Government no information of what was brewing in Honduras?

Mr. Lloyd: There are later Questions with regard to that matter. There was a public communication, I think in January of this year, by the Guatemalan Government.

Mr. Smithers: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend think it is a good thing that there should be an interval when a new Minister is appointed so that more junior members of the Diplomatic Service may have an opportunity to prove their worth?

U.N. Security Council Discussions

Mr. Beswick: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, following the abstention of the representative of Her Majesty's Government on the Security Council with regard to the matter of the invasion of Guatemala, he will now instruct Her Majesty's representative that it is the view of Her Majesty's Government that any country has the right to appeal to the Security Council under Article 35, even though that country is a member of a regional arrangement.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The abstention recorded in the Security Council on 25th June by the United Kingdom representative in connection with the Guatemalan question in no way indicated that Her Majesty's Government consider that membership of a regional arrangement impairs the right of appeal to the Security Council under Article 35 of the United Nations Charter.
The reasons for the abstention in question were explained in my reply to the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) on 30th June.

Mr. Beswick: If the Minister is now accepting what we have said on this side, that Guatemala had every right to bring her case before the Security Council, does he not think that it was most unfortunate that we appeared to equivocate at the important time?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not agree. There is the right referred to, under Article 35 of the Charter, to bring a matter to the attention of the Security Council. That was done.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Does not Article 39 also impose an absolute duty on the Security Council to determine whether or not there has been an aggression?

Mr. Lloyd: It certainly leaves it quite open to the Security Council to decide by what method it shall come to a conclusion on that point.

Sir H. Williams: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say whether the Press reports, to the effect that the total invading force consisted of one colonel, 38 other ranks and one radio transmitter, are true or not? Are not they less numerous than the whole Security Council put together?

Mr. Lloyd: I think it is quite clear that the whole business has been grossly exaggerated.

Mr. Marquand: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggest that it is necessary to determine by what method an aggression took place, and can he answer my previous question, which was whether he will publish the information which he obtained from this naval attaché in charge during the period?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is getting a little muddled. There was no naval attaché in charge during the period, but there are later Questions on the Order Paper about the publication of a White Paper, with which I am going to deal.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will publish a White Paper on the discussions in the United Nations Security Council on the events in Guatemala,


similar to the one that was issued on events which led to the United Nations action in Korea.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir. I am arranging for this to be done.

Mr. Wyatt: Will it not be forever to our shame that when this small country came to the United Nations Security Council with its complaint we did not act with the speed which the United Nations Charter requires, but shared in the equivocation and delays suggested by the United States, so that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter may be, we shall be forever on record as being prepared to act quickly when Communists undertake aggression but not when it is suggested that others may have?

Mr. Lloyd: That is, of course, a wholly misconceived comment. What happened was that on 20th June a suggestion was made for immediate action by a body already in existence to find the facts, namely, the Organisation of American States, and it was a Russian veto on 20th June that caused the delay.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: In view of the aspersions that have been cast upon a religious institution known as the United Fruit Company will the Minister of State undertake in the White Paper to tell us something about the United Fruit Company, how much of the land it owns, whether it is a monopoly, and whether the whole affair has not been organised in the interests of monopoly to overthrow a democratically elected Government?

Mr. Lloyd: I have promised a White Paper on the discussions of the United Nations Security Council on the events in Guatemala.

Mr. Gower: Could my right hon. and learned Friend possibly indicate whether the treaties and international agreements of this century have done anything, in effect, to modify the Monroe doctrine of the last century?

Mr. Lloyd: There is a strong feeling among Latin American States that the Monroe doctrine still exists and this Organisation of American States, which includes Guatemala, is in existence. Guatemala thereby pledges herself to take these matters first of all to the Organisation of the American States.

Mr. Crossman: Is the Minister aware that these events have been described by Mr. Dulles as a splendid victory against Communism, and that the Foreign Secretary has been specifically congratulated by Mr. Dulles for his success in preventing them being investigated by the United Nations? Does he not realise that a British policy which deliberately condones invasion by proxy by America and causes millions of men to die for invasion by proxy by Russia is something which brings this country into utter disrepute?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is true."]—and I believe that when this White Paper is studied, and the course of events is seen, very few people will agree with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a further statement on the action of the Security Council in relation to the Guatemalan question.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on further action taken by the Security Council of the United Nations regarding the invasion of Guatemala.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The position remains as stated in my reply to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick), on 28th June.

Mr. Warbey: As there is little doubt that this attack on the Guatemalan Government has been launched from bases outside the country, and that the Security Council's appeal for a cease fire was ignored, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say why the British representative did not urge the Security Council to intervene with the same speed as it intervened in the case of the Korean aggression? If the Minister says that this incident has been exaggerated is he saying that it was only a little murder and that, therefore, we should not bother much about it?

Mr. Lloyd: What I say is that when the matter first came before the Security Council on 20th June action was taken, supported by Her Majesty's Government, which, I believe, would have resulted in the facts being found very quickly, but that resolution was vetoed by the Soviet Union. Then, on a later occasion, on


25th June, an attempt was made to bring the item before the Security Council again. The hon. Member does not need much imagination to see what might easily have happened, and, in the circumstances, Her Majesty's Government were perfectly right in doing what they could to urge the Organisation of American States to send out a Fact-Finding Committee. In fact, the whole thing has fizzled out,

Mr. A. Henderson: May the House take it that it is the view of Her Majesty's Government that the outcome of the revolution in Guatemala will not be allowed to impede the consideration of the matter by the Security Council after it has received the report of this Fact-Finding Committee? Can we take it that the question whether or not there has been an act of aggression will not be ruled out by the fact that the revolution is over?

Mr. Lloyd: We have always said that the sending out of the Committee by the Organisation of American States should not exclude the matter from the Security Council. The matter would obviously have to be considered again by the Security Council in one form or another.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: Will my right hon. and learned Friend take note of the fact that his hon. Friends on this side of the House do not share the apparently unanimous regret of hon. Members opposite at the disappearance of a Communist régime hostile to this country?

Mr. Foot: May we take it from the Minister's reply that it is the opinion of Her Majesty's Government that if an aggression succeeds quickly enough it has the full approval of the Government?

Mr. Lloyd: Not at all, but one has to seek to take such action as is possible in the circumstances. The simple and the best form of action was vetoed by the Soviet Union on 20th June.

Mr. Hale: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give details of how the British representative voted on each complaint of a threat to her security made by Guatemala to the United Nations organisation during the last two years; what were the dates; and what action was taken.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The only occasions in the past two years on which the Guatemalan Government have asked the Security Council to take action to put an end to threats to her security were on 19th June and 22nd June of this year. These requests were considered by the Security Council on 20th June and 25th June. The House has already been informed of the way in which the United Kingdom delegate on the Security Council voted on those two occasions and of the action taken by the Council.

Mr. Hale: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that the sacrifice of a vital principle of the United Nations cannot be excused by saying that the Guatemalan war is only a small war, and that a small war is much more easy to regulate and prompt action is more easily effected? Is the Minister not aware that to refer to the bombing of an open town, the invasion of a country, and the sinking of a British ship as a matter which is fizzling out is a little unusual in this House, and that we heard it with regret? When the right hon. and learned Gentleman talks of exiles invading from without, might not a similar description be applied with equal accuracy to a war by Formosa against China?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that I referred to any of the matters as fizzling out. It appears that hostilities have terminated. They have fizzled out and, as has been suggested, the two colonels now are in comparative amity.

Mr. Royle: Can we take it from all these Questions and answers on this subject that it is now the policy of the Government that the United Nations organisation as such should only deal with aggression when the aggression arises from Communist countries?

Mr. Lloyd: Not at all. We wish the Security Council to operate in accordance with the terms of the Charter. On 20th June there was one veto on a certain course of action and, as I say, I do not think it requires much imagination to understand what would have happened. I am convinced that the course we took was the right one.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the Government insist that the Fact-Finding Committee shall give us the full facts of what occurred?

Mr. Lloyd: We certainly shall endeavour to find out the full facts. We have no power to insist.

Mr. Smithers: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, as one who was on the staff of the legation in Guatemala for some years, I feel that it is fortunate for British interests and for the interests of everybody in Central America that the disorders have ceased so quickly? Will my right hon. and learned Friend, therefore resist attempts to transfer the fighting to the Floor of this House when it can do nothing but harm to the interests of this country and of the Central American countries?

British Property (Damage)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a further statement on the effect on British interests of the situation in Guatemala and on the report of the Fact-Finding Commission.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As the House has already been informed, a Shell Company installation outside Guatemala City was machine-gunned and damaged, and the British vessel "Springfjord" was bombed and burnt out at the port of San José. I have received no other reports of damage to British property in Guatemala.
As far as the Fact-Finding Committee is concerned, I believe that Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala have now withdrawn their charges, but this has not yet been confirmed. The Committee returned to Washington on 3rd July from Mexico City, and an announcement may be made tomorrow.

Mr. Henderson: Apart from the fact that a British ship was sunk after being bombed, has the attention of the Minister been drawn to the statement in "The Times" today that had it not been for the fact that Colonel Armas had the services of a number of foreign aircraft the Government of Guatemala would have been able to deal with the situation very easily? Is it not essential, in view of this, that the public should know the identity of the aircraft, where they came from and where the bombs came from? In those circumstances, will the Government press for the Fact-Finding Committee to establish the facts?

Mr. Lloyd: Her Majesty's Government will certainly seek to find out what the

facts were, but I quite agree with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said on the point. As far as the Committee and its movements are concerned, I think we must await its report.

Captain Duncan: Is my right hon. and learned Friend in agreement with me when I say that this was a typical Central American revolution, and, that being so, that the whole incident has been grossly exaggerated, largely, it is suspected, on account of anti-American prejudice?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly think that hon. Members would be very wise not to draw a conclusion contrary to that of my hon. and gallant Friend without knowing the facts.

Mr. Wigg: If it is merely a question of a Central American revolution of the musical-comedy type, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman deny that American planes and pilots bombed and machine-gunned Guatemala?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a fact which we have to find out.

New Government

Sir R. Acland: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what Government he now recognises in Guatemala.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The constitutional position in Guatemala is not yet clear. No new request for recognition has been made. In the meantime, Her Majesty's representative has been instructed to deal with the authorities in Guatemala City on a de facto basis.

Sir R. Acland: In view of the report in "The Times" already quoted by my right hon. and learned Friend, has the Minister any doubt that we are here dealing with a situation in which an elected Government has been overthrown by a revolutionary force vociferously encouraged and militarily sustained from outside? Is that not exactly what we complain about regarding the Communists all over China and Asia, and had we not better be very wary about recognising the outcome of this lamentable state of affairs?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly agree with the hon. Baronet that we should try to ascertain more about the facts before we proceed to deal with this new Government except on a de facto basis. On the other


hand, it is quite clear that what took place was a revolt by Guatemalan exiles against the Government.

Aircraft Attacks

Sir R. Acland: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the bombing and sinking of a British ship near Guatemala.

Mr. Bing: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will instruct Her Majesty's representatives in Honduras, Guatemala and the United States of America to conduct inquiries as to the country of origin of the Thunderbolt aircraft used by the insurgents in the recent Guatemalan civil war that made attacks upon British shipping; the country or countries which granted the export licence to enable these aircraft to be supplied to the insurgents; and the country or countries from which these aircraft took off for their incursions into Guatemala.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As I have informed the House, the British steamer "Springfjord," on charter to the United States Grace Line, was bombed and set on fire on 27th June off the port of San José, Guatemala, when she was taking on a mixed cargo. Her crew are safe. Although badly damaged, Lloyds' Agent in Guatemala reported that the ship was still afloat on 29th June.
Immediate inquiries were addressed by Her Majesty's representatives in neighbouring countries to the Governments of El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua in an endeavour to establish the facts about the attacking aircraft. These Governments all stated that they had no information. The Guatemalan Government informed Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires on 28th June that the aircraft belonged to the insurgent forces.
A claim for compensation has been presented by the owners to the Guatemalan Legation in London.

Mr. Bing: Is the Minister aware that this was an American-type aircraft and that it must have taken off from territory other than Guatemalan? Does he intend to adopt the same attitude towards the loss of this British ship as the Chancellor of the Exchequer used to adopt during the Spanish civil war, or will he stand up for British interests?

Mr. Lloyd: I should imagine that there are very few aeroplanes in this part of the world that are not of American type.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the Minister verify from the Fact-Finding Committee which has gone out, I understand, on behalf of the United Nations, what the aircraft was, who gave the licence for its purchase and whether the United Fruit Company had anything to do with it?

Mr. Lloyd: Certainly. We shall try to find out whatever we can about an aircraft which, to whichever side it belonged, did a very wrong thing.

Mr. Strachey: If the Minister of State tells us that we should proceed on a de facto basis, should we not address our communications to the United Fruit Company?

Mr. Lloyd: We have no reason to believe that there is any truth at all in what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting. Of course, one advantage of the present de facto set up is that it appears to be a coalition of old and new elements in the Guatemalan Government. In those circumstances, we are pressing our claim with the new Guatemalan Government.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the two colonels concerned have been photographed kissing each other, so is not the show all over?

Mr. Bing: Will the Minister say where the 39 men—whom he has accepted in this "much exaggerated" event—obtained the napalm bombs which were put down on the British ship, and how the aircraft came into the possession of the rebels? Will he not ask the United States Government if they sold the ammunition to the rebels?

Mr. Lloyd: This is a matter to be investigated, but the hon. and learned Gentleman, in assuming that the United States Government are responsible in some way for this, is. I believe, stating something which is wholly divorced from the truth.

Mr. Marquand: After the British ship had been bombed did the right hon. Gentleman instruct the new British representative to fly at once to Guatemala or


did he tell him on no account to interrupt his holiday?

Mr. Lloyd: That is quite an unfair remark. The British representative was doing his best to get to Guatemala City, but it was impossible for him to get there. He was not on holiday at all, and I think that it is a quite irresponsible smear to have made a remark of that sort. The minute this incident happened Her Majesty's representatives in all these countries were instructed to make urgent inquiries.

Mr. Wigg: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action the Security Council took with regard to the complaint made by Guatemala regarding the machine-gunning and bombing by foreign aircraft of Guatemala's civilian population; and what part the British delegate took in the discussion of this matter.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The complaint of the Guatemalan authorities was considered by the Security Council on 20th June. A resolution referring the complaint to the Organisation of American States for urgent consideration and requesting the Organisation of American States to inform the Security Council as soon as possible on the measures it had been able to take was vetoed by the representative of the Soviet Union. The Security Council then unanimously approved a resolution calling for the immediate termination of any action likely to cause bloodshed and requesting all members of the United Nations to abstain from giving assistance to any such action.

Mr. Wigg: Will the Minister be good enough to answer "Yes," or "No," to a simple question? Is it a fact that American aircraft, manned by American pilots, machine-gunned Guatemalan civilians and dropped napalm bombs on Guatemala, and that Her Majesty's Government were well aware of that fact?

Mr. Lloyd: That is certainly not the case. Her Majesty's Government have no information of that kind whatsoever.

Sir R. Acland: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of all the answers to all these Questions about Guatemala, may I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to rule

that if the matter is not otherwise debated between now and then it shall be debated for at least two hours on the Adjournment for the Summer Recess?

Mr. Speaker: I shall consider that question along with the many other requests which I have received.

Disturbances (Information)

Dr. Stross: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what information he received from the Government of Guatemala prior to the recent disturbances, indicating the danger of armed attack and the details of the bombing of open towns and villages with consequent danger to British subjects; and whether he will publish the whole of the correspondence as a White Paper.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Last January, Her Majesty's Legation at Guatemala City received a copy of a statement which the Guatemalan Government had issued to the Press about the plans of Guatemalan exiles. No other communication received before the disturbances began indicated the danger of armed attack.
As I have already said, I am issuing a White Paper on this subject.

Dr. Stross: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean that he received, during the disturbances, cables stating exactly what was happening and what risks were being undergone by British subjects in the territory? Is he aware that it is important that the fullest information should be made available, so that we should know whether this was an old type of civil war of insurrection, or whether it was the iron heel in action?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly think the hon. Gentleman's request is very reasonable, and I will seek to give the fullest possible information in the White Paper.

Mr. Foot: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman talks of getting the facts from the Fact-Finding Committee, is it not a fact that now that the aggression has paid, the Fact-Finding Committee is to be wound up?

Mr. Lloyd: I have never limited myself to saying that we only seek to get the facts from the Fact-Finding Committee. In answer to an earlier question, I said that we had no power to insist upon that,


but we will certainly do all we can to see that the full facts are found.

Mr. A. Henderson: I understood the Minister to say that Her Majesty's Government did not intend that the outcome of this revolution should prevent the Security Council from inquiring into this question whether there had been an act of aggression. How can they do that if there is no report of the facts received by them? Are we to understand now from the Minister that the Fact-Finding Committee has been wound up and that there is no independent body making any investigation into the facts in Guatemala?

Mr. Lloyd: I think the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. All I was saying, in answer to the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), was that Her Majesty's Government were not limiting their sources of information to anything that might be discovered by the Fact-Finding Committee. To my knowledge the Fact-Finding Committee has not been wound up, but has simply returned from Mexico City to Washington.

Official Correspondence (Publication)

Mr. Wigg: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will publish a White Paper containing the correspondence, diplomatic notes and other correspondence which have passed between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Guatemala from April, 1953, to the present date.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I will consider this in connection with the White Paper to which I referred in my reply to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes).

Mr. Wigg: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that reply. Will he be good enough to include in that statement all the Notes which were issued following the bombardment of Corfu? Before congratulating himself on the fact that the Guatemalan aggression has fizzled out will he bear in mind that it was this kind of fighting which led to the First World War, and what is now happening in Guatemala might produce a similar result?

Mr. Lloyd: If any White Paper covered all the similar incidents which have happened in the past it would be a very long one indeed.

Mr. Strachey: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the replies which he has made on the question of Guatemala this afternoon indicate that Her Majesty's Government's policy is that intervention by the United Nations in cases of aggression is premature before that aggression has succeeded?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that that is not the position. In this case there is a body of the States concerned, of which Guatemala is a member and to whose charter she has subscribed, and that body was admirably placed to take such steps as were necessary. As Argentina and Mexico are both members of the Organisation, I should have thought there could be no doubt about the balance of opinion in the Fact-Finding Committee.

Mr. Peyton: Does the Minister agree that, summarising the Questions which have been asked by the party opposite, it is the opinion of that party that we should intervene in a civil war?

Mrs. Castle: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the action of the British delegate on the Security Council was designed to give time for this aggression to succeed, and that if this country had wished to avoid delay in the handling of this matter the best way would have been for the Security Council to have handled it itself, in which case Russia would not have vetoed the proposals?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Lady is misinformed. The Russian veto took place on 20th June. The British Government took the action they did because there was no other way in which progress could have been made. I do not believe that any other resolution would have escaped a veto.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-CHINESE TRADE

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress is being made in the negotiations for the restoration of normal trade with China.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Her Majesty's Government are not at present engaged in any negotiations about trade with China. The hon. Member no doubt has in mind the talks between the Sino-British Trade Committee, representing


various prominent British manufacturing and trading organisations, and a party of Chinese trade experts. It is too early yet to assess what progress is being made in these talks. The Chinese delegation is at present visiting factories, and talks will be resumed on its return to London.

Mr. Warbey: In view of the fact that there has been an armistice in Korea for two years, is it not high time that trade relations with China were normalised, or at least put on the same basis as with the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union? What steps are the Government taking towards this end?

Mr. Lloyd: I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Korean armistice was a step in the right direction. I think that the next step to take is to stop the fighting in Indo-China.

Mr. Shinwell: Is there not a Chinese delegation in this country at the present time—I think it arrived the other day—and would it not be desirable, apart from manufacturers here receiving its members, that they should be received by the President of the Board of Trade, or by an appropriate Government Department?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Bottomley: As trade with China is on a different basis from East-West trade generally, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the visit of the President of the Board of Trade to America was in connection with trade with China?

Mr. Lloyd: I think not.

Mr. Shinwell: If it is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman, on behalf of the Foreign Office, make it quite clear that the Foreign Office would raise no objection if the President wished to see the members of this delegation?

Mr. Lloyd: I will certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will now initiate discussions in the United Nations

to modify the resolution of 18th May, 1951, regarding trade with China, so that strategic controls on exports to that country are brought into line with those on exports to Eastern Europe.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. We must await the outcome of the Geneva Conference before we can consider whether any such discussions should be initiated.

Mr. Wilson: Does that answer and that given to the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. William Warbey), mean that the Government insist on awaiting a political settlement in Korea before considering that reasonably normal trading relations between China and Britain are possible? If so, does it not give Syngman Rhee a veto?

Mr. Lloyd: I said that we should await the outcome of the Geneva Conference, which is dealing not only with Korea but with Indo-China.

Mr. Wilson: But since the boycott was put on in 1951 because of aggression in Korea, and since fighting has stopped there, is there any good reason why relations with China should not be on the same basis as those with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the extent to which the five principles of peace recently agreed between the Indian and Chinese Prime Ministers, a copy of which has been sent him, form part of British foreign policy.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: British foreign policy is based upon the principles set forth in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. The five principles to which the right hon. and learned Member refers seem to be generally consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREEK DIPLOMAT, LONDON (BRITISH CLAIM)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware of the case of the diplomat in the Greek Embassy in London, particulars of which have been sent to him, against whom a common law claim by a


British subject for damages for personal injuries caused by his negligence in driving a motor car in England has been made but who pleads in defence diplomatic immunity; and what steps he intends to take to enable justice to be done to the British subject who has been so injured.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker): Yes, Sir. I have studied the information which the hon. and learned Member has so kindly forwarded to me. The diplomat concerned left the United Kingdom in May last on the termination of his appointment at the Greek Embassy. He is no longer regarded as having any immunity from the jurisdiction of the English courts.
I am informed that the diplomat carried automobile insurance against third party risks, but that the insurance company concerned has failed to meet the claim. Inquiries are being made as to the grounds on which liability has been denied. Appropriate measures will be taken in the light of the information obtained.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Minister say what are the appropriate measures designed and calculated to protect the British citizen who was injured, and see that the doctrine of immunity is not carried too far in this matter?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I will do that. It may interest the House to know that an arrangement has been in force since 1935 under which all companies have given an undertaking not to avail themselves of diplomatic immunity in order to evade compliance with their obligations under automobile policies.

Oral Answers to Questions — BURMA (CHINESE NATIONALIST TROOPS)

Mr. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many Chinese Nationalist troops have been evacuated from Burmese soil in pursuance of the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations; how many still remain; and whether the evacuation is still continuing.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I have received no report of further evacuation since my right hon. and learned Friend informed

the House on 2nd June that 6,900 persons had been evacuated, including about 1,400 dependents. General Li Mi, the former commander of the troops in Burma, announced on 30th May that his headquarters had been disbanded because all the troops answering his orders had been evacuated. No further evacuation is in progress.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Am I right in understanding that the Committee set up at the request of the United Nations Assembly is still in existence, and that if further evacuations are required they will be carried out?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Yes, Sir. As I understand, under the resolution debated by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 8th December, 1953, it is primarily the responsibility of the Government of Burma to report on the situation to the General Assembly if they so desire.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Did the Foreign Minister of Burma, when in this country, say whether he was satisfied with the arrangements made?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I have no information on the point, but I will make inquiries and let the right hon. Gentleman know.

Mr. Smithers: Is the Minister aware that the Parliamentary delegation which recently visited Burma was unanimously of the opinion that the evacuation of these troops had been of the greatest possible help in the matter of the restoration of law and order there—which is a British interest—and that a good many guerilla troops remained? Will he see that everything in our power is done to get them taken away?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Certainly, if the Government of Burma make a complaint.

Mr. Donnelly: Is there not a difference between the number evacuated and the number originally there? Will the Minister look into the matter and give us some figures at a later date?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I think that the estimate of 12,000 as the total number of K.M.T. in Burma was never sacrosanct. It has never been possible to make an accurate check as the troops included a considerable number of local adherents


who either dispersed or reverted to banditry with the removal of the hard core of foreign troops.

Oral Answers to Questions — BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE CONVENTION (N.A.T.O. RATIFICATION)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs which of the Governments of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have not yet ratified the convention agreeing not to resort to bacteriological warfare.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: The United States and Iceland.

Mr. Hughes: As Her Majesty's Government have ratified the anti-bacteriological convention, does not the Minister think that we should approach both Iceland and the United States so that there can be some co-ordination of policy on germ warfare among all the countries in N.A.T.O.?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: No. The convention in question is the Geneva Protocol, signed on 17th June, 1925. As far as the United States Government is concerned, it is as anxious as any other to achieve the prohibition of this type of warfare. Its position has been explained to the Disarmament Commission. They themselves proposed in 1952 that the disarmament Commission should provide for the elimination of all major weapons of destruction, including bacteriological weapons.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-EGYPTIAN RELATIONS

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any further statement to give the House in respect of Anglo-Egyptian relations.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As I said in reply to a Question in this House on 2nd June, it is still the intention of Her Majesty's Government to seek to reach a suitable agreement with the Egyptian Government. I have nothing to add to that at present.

Mr. Sorensen: Would the Minister at least indicate chronologically what progress has been made? Are we likely to have the result announced in the relatively near future?

Mr. Lloyd: I hope in the relatively near future.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman seen a statement in the Press purporting to be from a speech delivered by a high-ranking Egyptian spokesman the other day to the effect that when the British troops evacuated the Suez Canal Zone that would be a useful opportunity to make an attack on Israel? Has he seen that statement? If so, what is his comment on it?

Mr. Lloyd: I have seen that statement. I think it would be very much to be deplored if that was the view of the Egyptian Government.

Mr. Shinwell: Has that statement been authenticated by Her Majesty's Government?

Mr. Lloyd: We have no reason to believe that the gentleman in question did not make that statement.

Mr. Amery: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend think that the statement by Major Salem, that
We cannot fight in Palestine with the British lurking behind our backs
creates conditions in which it is very difficult indeed to negotiate with the Egyptians about a withdrawal of British fighting troops from the Canal Zone?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly think the statement was reprehensible.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL DISPUTE

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present position in respect of a settlement of the Anglo-Iranian Oil dispute.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Negotiators representing the eight oil companies went back to Tehran on 19th June and have resumed discussions with the Persian Government. These continue in a most cordial atmosphere and progress has been made on a number of matters.

Mr. Sorensen: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what is happening to the oil installations? To what extent are they working?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a different question, of which I should like notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS CHARTER (CHAPTER VIII)

Mr. Hale: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what at present are the competent regional arrangements or agencies within the meaning of Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace or security and through which the Security Council can encourage the settlement of local disputes; and what was the date of recognition of each such arrangement or agency.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The United Nations Charter does not provide for the recognition of regional arrangements or agencies. In practice, the Organisation of American States has been regarded as such an agency and is the only one in respect of which Her Majesty's Government consider the position to be clear. The Charter of the Organisation of American States came into force in 1948.

Mr. Hale: Are we to understand, as the Question takes the precise words of the Charter, that no other member of the United Nations was ever aware that Her Majesty's Government recognised this organisation until the moment when recognition was effected and that the matter has never been brought before the full Council or the Security Council until this reference was made?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think there is any provision in the Charter for this process of recognition.

Oral Answers to Questions — E.D.C. TREATY (RATIFICATION)

Mr. Bing: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the nature of the communication sent jointly to the Government of France by Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States of America in regard to the ratification of the European Defence Community agreement.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No such communication has been made. The view of Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government on the question of ratification of the European Defence Community Treaty is set out in the statement issued in Washington on 28th June by President Eisenhower and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Mr. Bing: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman telling the House that a decision with regard to Germany was arrived at in Washington but was not communicated to the ally who, perhaps, suffered more than any other ally in the last war?

Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. and learned Gentleman will read the statement which has been issued he will see exactly what it says.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH-EAST ASIA (REGIONAL ORGANISATION)

Mr. Bing: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will take the initiative in having set up a regional organisation for South-East Asia, confined to and including all States in that area, of a type similar to that existing on the American Continent to which the Security Council can delegate its authority.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in his speech on 23rd June.

Mr. Bing: The Minister has just said that a regional organisation is the simplest and best method of dealing with these matters. Will he not now use his initiative in setting up, for the South-East Asian States, an arrangement of a type similar to that of the Monroe Powers on the American Continent, to which all such matters can be referred?

Mr. Lloyd: What I have said referred only to the Organisation of American States. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will read what my right hon. Friend said, he will see what kind of arrangements he had in mind as being suitable for South-East Asia.

Oral Answers to Questions — B.B.C. OVERSEAS BROADCASTS

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many programme hours per week the British Broadcasting Corporation was transmitting overseas in 1947; the number currently broadcast; and how this compares with the number of programme hours broadcast at that time and now by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its satellites.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: The figures requested by the hon. Member are as follow:

PROGRAMME HOURS (WEEKLY)


—
B.B.C.
U.S.S.R.
Satellites


1947
…
622
306
118


1954
…
567
597
710

Mr. Davies: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in view of the very large increase in the number of broadcasts by the Soviet Union and the satellite countries, and the decrease in the number of broadcasts by the B.B.C., it would be very unwise further to reduce B.B.C. broadcasts? Can he give an assurance that the proposal to reduce or eliminate certain European services will not be carried out?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I cannot give any such assurance at the moment, but I think the House will be interested to know that the Government of which the hon. Member was a member reduced the programme hours from 713 in 1946 to 564 in 1951, since when they have been slightly increased. At present, the total number of external broadcasts by the free world still greatly exceed that of Soviet Russia and her satellites. In 1952, Russia and her satellites together put out 1,175 programme hours weekly, whereas the total for the N.A.T.O. countries, together with Yugoslavia, was substantially over 2,000 programme hours weekly.

Mr. Bing: Among the broadcasts from the free nations to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, is it proposed to broadcast the speech of Mr. Dulles, in which he said, in regard to Guatemala:
The events of recent months and days add a new and glorious chapter to the already great tradition of the American States."?

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF FOOD

Trichinosis, Liverpool (Compensation)

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Minister of Food in how many cases compensation has been paid to persons who contracted trichinosis in Liverpool recently: and when he decided that his Department was liable.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Charles Hill): In no case has liability been admitted or compensation been paid by my Department.

Mrs. Braddock: Is the Minister aware that it has been stated that in two cases compensation has already been paid by his Department? Will he look into this matter carefully because there are about 90 cases, and if liability is to be accepted in some the others ought also to be considered?

Dr. Hill: I think there is some misunderstanding. I believe that two claims have been made against the retailer—the Liverpool Co-operative Society—and it may be that they have been settled, but no claim has as yet been made or sustained in regard to my Department.

Mrs. Braddock: Will the Minister confirm that the pig responsible for this outbreak of trichinosis was the responsibility of the Ministry of Food, that the Ministry has already accepted responsibility, and that it was because of that fact that the Medical Officer of Health's Department in Liverpool was unable to trace the pig past the abattoir?

Dr. Hill: The Ministry will not deny anything which is its proper responsibility, but in the circumstances I suggest that it would be wiser to say no more at present.

Food Hygiene

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Food what steps he is taking to ensure that food is handled in as clean a manner as possible.

Dr. Hill: Although the responsibility rests primarily on local authorities the Ministry encourages and helps; for example, it lends films and exhibition material, it issues model byelaws, working party reports and such publications as "Clean Catering."

Mr. Willey: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the whole House appreciates his personal interest in this matter? Is he further aware, however, that there is now a widespread feeling that the Government are not going to proceed with the Food and Drugs (Amendment) Bill? In view of his


personal interest in the matter, will he set about his more reactionary colleagues and try to save this Bill?

Dr. Hill: The hon. Member will realise that that is a matter not for me, but for the Leader of the House. Secondly, he will remember the statement which I made in the discussions on the Slaughterhouses Bill last week.

Sausages (Meat Content)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Food what action he is taking to provide that the meat content of sausages is brought to the notice of consumers.

Dr. Hill: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. and gallant Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. J. Rodgers) on 15th June.

Mr. Willey: As the trade and the consumers wish to have this protection, does the Parliamentary Secretary not think that it would be worth while to hold further discussions with the trade to see whether or not it could be enforced in one way or another?

Dr. Hill: Advice on this point has been offered to the trade and the trade organisations have passed that advice to their members.

Mr. Berwick: As the matter cannot be properly dealt with until we have the Food and Drugs Amendment Bill, cannot the hon. Gentleman ask the Leader of the House whether we are likely to have the Bill this Session or not?

Bulletin (Publication)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of its general value to the food industry, he will continue the publication of the Ministry of Food Bulletin.

Dr. Hill: No, Sir.

Mr. Willey: Does the Parliamentary Secretary not agree that this is a first-class publication, and that, although a great deal of the Ministry's responsibility will cease with the end of rationing, it might still serve a useful purpose and, therefore, be worth while continuing, at any rate for a time?

Dr. Hill: I agree that has been a quite useful publication, but two-thirds of the

copies have gone for internal distribution, and, bearing in mind that the loss has been about £50 an issue, it seems that with the end of rationing this is an, economy we could usefully make.

Meat Supplies, East Scotland

Major Anstruther-Gray: asked the Minister of Food what complaints he has received from the east of Scotland regarding the quantities of beef, mutton and pork available during the last 10 days.

Dr. Hill: The Scottish Federation of Meat Traders' Associations has complained of a low proportion of beef in the final meat allocation.

Major Anstruther-Gray: Taking things broadly, is it not very satisfactory that these few days at the end of rationing and beginning of derationing have passed off with so little dislocation?

Dr. Hill: I do not dissent from the view my hon. and gallant Friend has expressed.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, while there may be complaints about the quantity in East Scotland, according to reports today the quantities of meat at Smithfield Market were actually excessive, but that the prices were the highest ever known in the history of the trade? Can he suggest how to bring the prices down in the interests of the consumers?

Dr. Hill: I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should not jump too speedily to condemnation of the first day of freedom.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am not condemning anybody or anything? I am only asking whether, in view of the high prices recorded at Smithfield Market this morning, the hon. Gentleman can suggest how to get the prices down.

Dr. Hill: My suggestion is that we should wait for a few days to see from experience the prices at which meat is sold.

Food and Drugs Amendment Bill (Consultations)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Food what further consultations he has had with the catering trade regarding


the Food and Drugs Amendment Bill; and what changes have been made in the proposed regulations as a result.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Food whether he will announce the result of his discussions with catering trade organisations on food hygiene.

Dr. Hill: A revised draft of proposals for food hygiene regulations was circulated to representative organisations, including those representing the catering trade, on 31st May. It is too soon to say what changes, if any, will result, as many replies have still to come in.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say whether it is true that more than half the valuable safeguards originally contained in the regulations have been dropped in view of the pressure of the catering industry? Does he propose to bring forward the attenuated Bill later this Session?

Dr. Hill: It is true that after the first series of proposals a revision was made for the second version, in the light of the comments and criticisms received. It is the second version that is now the subject of the criticism of the associations of local authorities and other bodies concerned, and we shall continue this practice of consulting those affected.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Has not the Government's abject surrender to the catering trade pressure dealt a very damaging blow to the clean food campaign? Will the hon. Gentleman now make it quite clear that it is not the intention of the Government so to allow the regulations to be whittled down as to continue to make it easy for dirty food to be served in dirty cafés?

Dr. Hill: A study of the second draft of the proposals would reveal that the hon. and gallant Gentleman's suggestion of an abject surrender is contrary to the facts.

Dr. Morgan: No. The hon. Gentleman should read it himself.

Mr. H. Morrison: In view of the fact that the Leader of the House has persistently and obstinately declined to inform the House what the prospects of the Food and Drugs Amendment Bill are, could the Parliamentary Secretary, with

his greater knowledge, put the House out of its misery by telling us about the state of the Bill, because he obviously knows better than the right hon. Gentleman, who often is not fully up to date with Parilamentary business?

Mr. Robens: Is it the Government's policy now that the standard of hygiene shall be as high as the lowest of the dirtiest firms in the catering industry?

Dr. Hill: No. The right hon. Gentleman is making a completely unfounded suggestion. It is right and proper that when proposals for new standards are brought in they should be submitted for the comments and views of all those concerned. That is what is happening in this case.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

Bacteriological Trials, Bahamas (Report)

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Supply to what extent Her Majesty's Government propose to make available to the other Governments of the United Nations the results of the recent experiments in bacteriological warfare in which H.M.S. "Lomond" took part.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): The report upon the results of the trials is not yet completed. Until I receive it, I cannot say whether it would be suitable for publication.

R.O.F. Superintendents (Salaries)

Mr. Albu: asked the Minister of Supply whether the claim of the superintendents of Royal ordnance factories for a revision of salaries has yet been settled.

Mr. Sandys: If, by the word "settled," the hon. Member means accepted, the answer is, No, Sir.

Mr. Albu: In view of the fact that it was thought advisable to have the matter referred to arbitration, is there any reason why that should not be done?

Mr. Sandys: That would not be the normal practice in cases of this kind. It would be a complete departure from the procedure that has been followed previously.

Motor Industry Council

Mr. Edelman: asked the Minister of Supply when the National Advisory Council for the Motor Industry last met; and which of its recommendations he proposes to publish.

Mr. Sandys: The answer to the first part of the Question is, 28th April. The answer to the second part is, None, Sir.

Mr. Edelman: Is it not the case that this potentially valuable body has been allowed to become moribund under the present Government? Will the right hon. Gentleman not take steps to issue regular reports and to call regular meetings and to strengthen this body by increasing its trade union representation?

Mr. Sandys: I do not know why the hon. Member thinks it has become moribund. It met about two months ago and is to meet again at the end of this month.

Departmental Functions (Transfer)

Mr. Pannell: asked the Minister of Supply what functions it is proposed to transfer away from his Department in the foreseeable future; the approximate date of the transfer; the Departments to which they are to be transferred; and the number of staff which will become redundant.

Mr. Sandys: The allocation of functions between the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Supply, in certain spheres where they converge, is at present being studied. No decisions have yet been reached.

Mr. Pannell: Will the Minister give an assurance that any transfers of work that may eventually be decided upon will be discussed with the Staff Side of the Departmental Whitley Council at the earliest possible moment, and the further assurance that staff at present employed on this work will be transferred with their work to the Board of Trade, as there is a fear that functions will be transferred and the staff will be declared redundant?

Mr. Sandys: I explained that no decisions on this matter have yet been reached. I do not propose to go into the details. Questions dealing with the allocation or transfer of responsibilities between one Minister and another ought to be addressed to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Callaghan: While I understand that the Minister cannot go into the details now, may I ask whether he will consider informing the staff of his own Department who are concerned about this and so, perhaps, clear up many of their worries?

Mr. Sandys: Before any decision is taken about any transfer of responsibilities it would obviously be quite improper to discuss it with anybody.

Requisitioned Properties

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of Supply how many properties are still held under requisition by his Department; if he will order a new investigation into the circumstances of each case; and if he will direct that prior consideration be given to the original owner or owners, whenever a sale is contemplated.

Mr. Sandys: The number of properties held under requisition by the Ministry of Supply has been reduced to 89. The need to retain these is reviewed about every six months. Since requisitioning does not affect ownership, the last part of the Question does not arise.

Mr. Gower: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is the most satisfactory reply I have ever received from any Department on this subject?

Comet Aircraft (Tests)

Mr. G. R. Strauss: asked the Minister of Supply what progress has been made in the Comet tests undertaken by his Department.

Mr. Sparks: asked the Attorney-General what results have so far been achieved in the technical investigations into the causes of the recent disasters to the British Overseas Airways Corporation's Comet jetliners.

Mr. Sandys: I will, with permission, answer together Question No. 44 and Question No. 47, to which I have been asked to reply.
The technical examination of the Comet by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough is making good progress. The wreckage recovered from the sea near Elba has been most thoroughly examined; and an extensive programme of trial flights and experiments has been carried out on Comet


aircraft withdrawn from service. In particular, the wings, tail and main structure have been tested for metal fatigue and for possible weaknesses; the strength of the pressurised cabin has been exhaustively tested; and trials have been carried out to discover whether excessive pressure might have been built up in the tanks through the use of high pressure fuel pumps. These and other tests are still proceeding. It would, therefore, be premature to announce the results obtained.
When the investigations are completed, all information will be submitted to the Court of Inquiry. Meanwhile, the manufacturers are being kept fully informed so that they may consider what modifications may be necessary.

Mr. Strauss: Has the right hon. Gentleman any idea when the tests are likely to be completed and when everybody will know where they are? Secondly, has anything been shown so far, as a result of these tests, which is likely to dispel the right hon. Gentleman's hope, which I think he expressed in the House a little time ago, that the manufacture of these planes might perhaps be resumed before very long?

Mr. Sandys: First of all, dealing with how long these investigations will continue, I think my answer must be that I am hopeful that it will not be many weeks more; how many weeks I am not prepared to say. As I explained in my reply, these investigations are still going on and I would, therefore, prefer not to speculate in any way about the results which may emerge; but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that nothing has happened and nothing has emerged which makes me more pessimistic or less optimistic than I have expressed myself to be on any previous occasion.

Mr. Sparks: When the final conclusions are reached, will the Minister so inform the House?

Mr. Sandys: If the House is sitting and if I am asked.

Mr. Lee: In view of the report which the Minister has given, would he try to make it possible to find alternative work

for the people who are being displaced as a result of this trouble, especially in Northern Ireland? Instead of allowing them to become unemployed and breaking up an efficient team, would it not be a good idea to try to find temporary work for them and not allow them to become unemployed?

Mr. Sandys: The best thing we can do, in the first place, is to press ahead with these investigations.

Mr. McKibbin: In view of the very serious effect on unemployment in Northern Ireland owing to the suspension of work on the Comet, is my right hon. Friend aware that nowhere would an early statement be more welcome than in Belfast, particularly in East Belfast?

Mr. Sandys: I have no doubt that any statement made here would reach Belfast.

Mr. Bowles: As the Minister has been good enough to give some indication of the various forms which the inquiry has taken, could he say whether the Royal Aircraft Establishment is making any inquiries into the allegation which I saw in the Press, suggesting that the stalling speed of the Comet is much greater near the ground than it is when it is high up?

Mr. Sandys: I could not answer that. The accidents happened high up, and not near the ground.

Mr. Robens: Has the right hon. Gentleman made any efforts, in association with his right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour, to deal with the very great problem of employment in Northern Ireland which has resulted from the Comet troubles?

Mr. Sandys: That goes a long way from the Question on the Order Paper.

Dr. Morgan: Do not run away from it.

Mr. Sandys: I am not running away. I was about to say that I have been looking at this matter very closely. We have been doing everything we can, but it has not been at all easy to find additional work, which might be only temporary, for an aircraft factory at short notice.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE EXPENDITURE, 1952–53

Committee to consider the surpluses and deficits upon Army and Air grants for the year ended 31st March, 1953, and the application of surpluses to meet expenditure not provided for in the grants for that year upon Thursday.

Appropriation Accounts for the Army and Air Departments [presented 25th January] referred to the Committee.—[Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[19TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — CIVIL ESTIMATES

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £70, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Civil Defence for the year ending on 31st March, 1955, namely:—


Civil Estimates, 1954–55



£


Class III, Vote 1, Home Office
10


Class III, Vote 2, Home Office (Civil Defence Services)
10


Class I, Vote 25, Scottish Home Department
10


Class III, Vote 15, Scottish Home Department (Civil Defence Services)
10


Class V, Vote 4, Ministry of Health
10


Class V, Vote 1, Ministry of Housing and Local Government
10


Class VII, Vote 1, Ministry of Works
10


Total
£70

Orders of the Day — CIVIL DEFENCE

3.55 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): This is the first opportunity that there has been in this Parliament for a full debate on civil defence.
On 18th July, 1952, we had an interesting debate on a Motion by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) and on 20th April, 1953, we had a short discussion on the Adjournment at the instance of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey) supported by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas), but the scope of those debates was necessarily limited, and I am glad that today the Committee has the opportunity of a fuller discussion of this important subject.
For many reasons it is desirable that the House should from time to time receive progress reports on civil defence, and such occasions are particularly to be welcomed because they are the best means of assisting the country as a whole to obtain a balanced view of this subject


and of affording encouragement to those thousands of public-spirited volunteers who are giving up their time to this work.
All previous occasions, whether in this Parliament or before, have been characterised by complete agreement in principle between the Government of the day and the Opposition. I hope that this will be the case again today, and, though there may well be differences of approach and criticisms of detail, I am sure that we shall find ourselves in broad agreement as to the general policy to be pursued.
I should like to start by a few quotations to illustrate my point that there is no major difference between the policy of the present Administration and that of its predecessor. On 29th January, 1951, the right hon. Gentleman, the present Leader of the Opposition, in the course of a statement about the defence programme of the Government, used these words:
This defence programme is designed to deter aggression, and we have therefore placed the emphasis upon the strengthening of the active defences. There must be limits to the resources which can be applied to defence purposes in time of peace, and we do not propose any general acceleration of civil defence preparations. We shall, however, press on with civil defence planning; and we shall accelerate those civil defence measures which directly support the efficiency of the Armed Forces."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1951; Vol. 483, c. 583.]
The right hon. Gentleman went on to mention a number of specific measures to which priority was being given.
Statements on very similar lines have been included in the successive annual statements on defence for which the present Government have been responsible, and I would quote, in particular, from paragraph 86 of the statement for the current year, which contains the following sentences:
Civil defence is an essential, integral, and continuing part of our defence preparations for any future war. In the development of a policy which gives first priority to preparations designed to deter a would-be aggressor, the rôle of civil defence is necessarily a secondary one, and its contribution to that policy must inevitably be through the indirect support which it can give to increasing the efficiency of the Armed Forces.
The statement goes on to give particulars of measures which had been taken during the preceding year and explains that it is intended to make further progress with them in the present year.
Similar statements have been made by Her Majesty's Ministers on a number of occasions, and it has been made abundantly clear that the general programme of priorities in the field of defence preparations has been based upon a policy which is directed to the prevention of war and not to preparations for a war considered to be imminent or inevitable.

Mr. George Wigg: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted paragraph 86 of the White Paper on Civil Defence in particular, but surely he must, in fairness, quote from the earlier paragraphs of the White Paper, which make it abundantly clear that in fact the atomic bomb is playing a major part in our defence policy?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Gentleman has, I think, if I may say so, with great intelligence, anticipated a subsequent portion of my speech.
There is, however, one important difference which has taken place in the background against which all civil defence measures have to be planned. In the debate on 24th July, 1950, my precedecessor was able to say that he did not believe, on any information that we or anyone else had at the moment, that a large number of atomic bombs could be dropped by any country. That, unfortunately, is not true any longer.
It is made clear—and here I come to the passage which, I am sure, the hon. Gentleman had in mind—in paragraph 13 of the Statement on Defence, 1954, that both the free world and the Communist world have what is commonly called the hydrogen bomb, and that it must be assumed that if a global war were forced upon us, such weapons would be employed by both sides, and that in that event it seems very likely that such a war would begin with a period of intense atomic attacks.
Since then, fuller information has been made public about the development of nuclear weapons. I have already told the House that the effect of new developments has already been made the subject of preliminary study from the civil defence point of view. It is obvious that these developments have implications affecting the whole of our defence policy and are not confined to the field of civil defence.
It has been made clear on a number of occasions in this House and elsewhere that there has been from the beginning the closest collaboration between the military and the civil advisers of the Government, and my reason for emphasising the point at the moment is that major decisions in the field of civil defence must necessarily be related to and form part of decisions in the wider field.
While, therefore, studies are actively proceeding over a large part of the civil defence field in parallel with the review of wider defence policy, it would not be appropriate or indeed possible for me to make any comprehensive statement about their probable results today. I hope that the Committee and the country will not think it unreasonable to ask for more time for this purpose. I am conscious that anyone who asks for time is under a heavy burden to show later that it was not wasted.
Nevertheless, I hope to be able, in the course of a brief review of the steps that have been taken in the various fields of civil defence, to give some indication of the particular problems which face us. I should like to make it perfectly clear that we are not approaching these problems in any defeatist attitude.
There are those—as there were before the last war—who say that the possibilities of death and destruction in any modern war are so great that it is no good attempting to make any preparations. There are others who say that all our resources ought to be devoted to defensive preparations designed to save life and minimise damage. Neither of these attitudes is realistic.
We recognise, as we have made abundantly clear, for example, in the recent statement on defence, that if war should come the consequences would be infinitely more horrible than any which either ourselves or our enemies experienced in the last war, and it would be foolish to attempt the impossible task of providing immunity. We take the view, however, that much can be done to mitigate these consequences and that it is the duty of everyone to do the best they can.
That is the attitude which governed the plans and preparations of the preceding Administration; it is still our attitude, but we recognise that it is our responsibility to re-examine the plans

which in many cases were started by our predecessors and to consider to what extent revision is necessary.
I have already given to the House some indication of the nature of the threat from hydrogen bomb attacks, but I am sure that hon. Members would like me, first of all, to say something more about the effects of the latest atomic bombs—those which have popularly been given the title of "hydrogen bomb."
It is important to remember—because it dispels so many of the misconceptions which are in many minds—that these bombs are simply more powerful manifestations of an atomic explosion. The effects of the more powerful bombs therefore come under the three main heads set out in the Home Office pamphlet on Atomic Warfare—which I am sure many hon. Members have read—namely, blast, heat and radioactivity.
The radius of the destruction caused by blast is proportional to the cube root of the increase in power, so—if I may put it more simply—with a bomb a thousand times as powerful as the nominal bomb—that is, the type of bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the radius of damage would be about ten times as great. The blast damage would be graded in the same way as the blast damage from a smaller bomb: namely, there would be an inner area of total destruction; an area of serious damage where houses, if they could be repaired at all, could only be repaired as part of a long-term plan; an area of lighter damage, where house would be repairable in the short term; and, finally, on the very fringes, an area of superficial damage, where glass would be broken but very little else.
There is one difference in the nature of the damage in the area of total devastation which might result from the use of these vastly more powerful bombs. In order to produce the most damage with a nominal bomb—I am using "nominal" throughout as referring to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb—it is necessary to explode it well in the air, with the result that there is little or no cratering even at ground zero. The more powerful bomb, however, might not be exploded at a correspondingly greater height so that a crater would be made at the heart of the area of total devastation.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: It would, I think, be clearer to the Committee if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would give an illustration of the area which would be covered if a hydrogen bomb were dropped at the present time.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Perhaps I may take the two examples and relate them. With the atomic bomb, the area of total destruction was half a mile radius, of medium devastation three quarters of a mile, and of lighter destruction one and a half miles. With the Eniwetok bomb, to which I referred in a statement I made the other day, the corresponding figures were three miles, seven miles and 10 miles. On the mathematics which I have just given to the Committee—that is, with a bomb of 1,000 times the destructive power of the nominal bomb, in the sense in which I have used that term—my original figures would be multiplied by 10. If my vulgar fractions are still good, that would give five, 7½and 15 miles.
I was dealing with the question of height, which is a rather interesting aspect of the matter. This relative change in the height of burst would also have an effect on the consequent radioactivity. I should like to deal with radioactivity at some little length, because recent questions which have been put to me reveal that there is some confusion, in some quarters of the House, about this matter.
Direct, immediate radiation occurs at the moment of explosion in the form of gamma radiation. As the term implies, these are gamma rays, invisible and intangible, and protective clothing or washing of the body, and so on, are of no avail against them. They produce no immediate sensatory impression on those who absorb them and the results are only subsequently apparent in the form of radiation sickness, which will vary enormously in duration and gravity, according to the dose received.
Protection against this form of radiation is afforded by the screening effect of various materials, which diminish the penetration of the rays, and even the walls of an ordinary dwelling-house afford a marked degree of protection. The penetration of the rays decreases with distance from the point of burst, so that people in normal health under cover, even that afforded by the walls of a

dwelling-house, outside the area of total devastation would not be fatally or even seriously affected.
Next, I want to say a word on residual radioactivity. Delayed or residual radioactivity, as distinct from the primary effects, results mainly from the fission products of the explosion. The danger from this source, as was explained in the pamphlet on Atomic Warfare, largely depends on the point of burst being relatively near to the ground. As I have already said, the point of burse with a more powerful bomb might be relatively nearer to the ground than the point of burst for a nominal bomb, and there might, therefore, be considerable danger from radioactivity.
That danger might manifest itself in two ways. First, there could, according to the circumstances, be the area, at no great distance from the scene of the explosion, where radioactive matter was deposited as a direct result. Second, there might be the subsequent fall out from the radioactive cloud itself as it passes over a strip of country.
Finally, there is the heat emanated by the explosion—

Mr. Ede: Can the Home Secretary give any idea of how far the cloud would travel before it ceased to be a danger to human life and health?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: There are great differences of estimation and not sufficient clearly known results of experiments for me to wish to dogmatise on that, but I will try to get the right hon. Gentleman as exact estimations as I can. I think he understands why I do not want to tie myself on that point.
Finally, there is the heat emanated by the explosion, which takes the form of a heat flash, lasting for at least half a minute, of enormous intensity. Its effects vary with atmospheric conditions and are at their greatest on a perfectly clear day, with which, fortunately, from this point of view, we are very rarely favoured in this country.
As with radioactivity, the danger from heat flash is at its greatest where the blast effects of the bomb are most fully felt. But outside the area of devastation, even as far as the fringes of damage—my third section of damage—the


heat flash may start many fires, and persons caught in the open will be in danger of being burned to a varying degree.
That is the magnitude of the problem with which we might be faced as the result of the explosion of a single bomb.
My task today is to deal with the measures that can be taken to mitigate the effects of such an attack. Before doing so, I hope the Committee will bear with me if I make a brief diversion and say a word or two on what must be in the minds of all of us.
It is clear that if ever an attack with atomic weapons were made upon this or any inhabited country the loss of life, the suffering, and the material losses would be such as to constitute a tragedy without any previous parallel in history which would entail misery, hardship and a catastrophic drop in standards of wellbeing and civilisation which would require a matter of decades to restore.
None of these considerations provides adequate reasons for our taking a cowardly or defeatist attitude towards an aggressive demand upon us to accept principles or submit to action which our minds and consciences tell us are brutal and wrong. But they do make it more than ever vital far us all to strive to bring about conditions in the world which will enable peace to endure and the threat of war to disappear and effective measures of disarmament to be introduced. This, above everything, is, and will continue to be, the aim of Her Majesty's Government, as it was of their predecessors.
Meanwhile, until this aim is achieved, we must face facts as they exist. We must always remember that whatever the scale of air attacks, there will be wide areas which will escape serious damage. It is there and from there that the battle for survival will have to be fought. It is not merely a question of mitigating the damage on the fringe of the bomb damage.
Now to turn to what we are doing and what we shall have to do. I feel it right to begin with the Civil Defence Services, that growing body of men and women who have volunteered for part-time service with civil defence and who are proceeding with their training so that they

may be prepared to mitigate the effects of attack from the air, whatever the type of bomb that is used.
On 31st March, the Civil Defence Corps had 328,000 members, the National Hospital Service Reserve had 44,000 and the Auxiliary Fire Service had 20,000. In addition, we have more than 150,000 volunteers in the Industrial Civil Defence Service, an organisation whose importance cannot be over-stressed. I mention that there are also some 70,000 special constables, who have, of course, duties other than civil defence work.
Further, we have the unstinting help of the Women's Voluntary Services and the voluntary aid societies, who, besides providing many members for the Civil Defence Services, play a great part in their training. Of course I remember, as the Committee does, the Red Cross and the Order of St. John in that regard.
There have been expressions of doubt, of late, about the value of retaining and building up these local services. I have made my opinion clear that the Civil Defence Services were more than ever needed in the light of the new threats and that we intended to press on with recruitment. We are still short of the peacetime establishments which were set some years ago, and those responsible for recruiting must increase, and not relax, their efforts.
One thing that is clear from the outset is that there must be the closest cooperation between one local authority and another and between one service and another. To deal with attacks on the scale of those we are considering today, the emphasis in future must be on the use of local services as reinforcements and this must necessarily lead to changes in local establishments, so that strength is built up in places where it is most likely to be available for the general good.
For example, it would be prudent to raise larger rescue forces in those areas where hitherto the rescue requirement has been small. Such changes in establishments are now being worked out in detail and local authorities, industrial establishments and others concerned will be notified of them as soon as possible. I can say at once, however, that while the changes will result in increased establishments in some areas, they will nowhere result in decreases. Every authority must


Continue to strive for something not less than its existing establishment.

Mr. Frederick Willey: Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman passes from that matter, will he say something about the ordinary fire service? Surely that should be regarded as the backbone of the Civil Defence Services.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I agree that it is of tremendous importance and I was coming back at a later stage to the special problem of the fire-fighting services. The A.F.S. is of very great assistance, but the ordinary fire services are of tremendous importance, and I will say a word about fire-fighting techniques later in my speech. What I want to deal with now is techniques generally.
The techniques that are being taught to the members of the services are in no way outmoded by the new weapons, although they were devised before their advent. There is the technique of rescuing trapped persons. Let us pause there for a moment. I should like hon. Members who can to take the trouble to go and see the rescue instruction, and see what a difference 10 hours' instruction in rescue work can make in the efficacy of the people who are instructed. I think anyone approaching it in a non-party manner would be impressed by it. Similarly the rendering of first aid, reporting information about damage, caring for homeless people in a rest centre, and constructing a cooking stove out of bricks and mud will be just as relevant and even more vital when the numbers of people to be cared for are multiplied.
Naturally, there will be some changes in the details of training since the manuals are constantly kept under review to keep them up to date with the latest possible methods of attack and they are being revised at present so as to bring them into line with the most recent information.
The important thing is to push ahead with training, both locally and at the central training establishments. I am glad that the Civil Defence Staff College at Sunningdale and the Civil Defence Technical Training Schools at Falfield, Easingwold and Taymouth Castle continue to run to capacity and provide instruction to members of all services, including the Armed Forces, and to those

concerned with their direction. I am sure that the Committee will be pleased to know that the value of the work done in these establishments has recently been recognised by the promulgation of a scheme to make permanent the appointment of their commandants and a proportion of their instructors.
There are naturally variations in the progress of local training but what I believe to be a most important step to meet the wishes of both those responsible for organising local divisions of the Civil Defence Corps and the members of the Corps themselves is now being taken. It is a complete revision of the training syllabuses, with a view to cutting out duplication of them and making them more strictly pertinent to the work of the particular section to which the volunteer belongs.
These are only the local forces, and behind them must stand the centrally organised and controlled mobile columns which we have always regarded as an integral part of the civil defence organisation. The possibility of a much heavier scale of damage underlines the need for such columns. As hon. Members are aware, we began practical tests of the methods of organising and employing mobile columns by setting up an Experimental Mobile Column, based on Epsom, in January, 1953.
Since May, 1953, the column has carried out an invaluable series of exercises with local authorities and industry throughout the country and it is at present on tour.
During last year and this year, the column has been manned by members of the Army and the Royal Air Force and I am deeply grateful to those two Services for enabling us to carry out a project which has not only assisted in providing an assessment of the rôle and organisation of mobile columns but has also encouraged the holding of exercises by local authorities. The column will disband at the end of this year, when its personnel return to their units, and we are preparing to make a start next year with the training of reserves for service with mobile columns in war.
Without infringing any of the rules of order and going into the actual provisions of a Bill which is awaiting Second Reading in another place, it would, I


think, be useful if I reminded the Committee of what was said by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence in the defence debate. He told the Committee that the men to be trained in the immediate future will be National Service reservists of the R.A.F. in whose case it can be established early in their period of part-time service that they will not be required for mobilisation for normal R.A.F. duties in the early stages of war. The intention is to call them up for a fortnight's civil defence training in each of their last two years of part-time service. In that period they will be given training in rescue or fire-fighting duties at civil defence or fire service establishments, of which three will be set up next year and additional ones in the following year.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman telling us that the mobile columns will be mobilised in the event of war and will not be mobilised in peace time?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I shall be dealing with that point, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will put his question to me again if he thinks I have not dealt with it. It is very complicated to switch from aspect to aspect, and I am trying to give as complete a picture as I can. I hope I shall deal with the point, and if not, I hope the hon. Gentleman will ask me about it.

Mr. Wigg: Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will help us to get this point clear. As I understood the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence—and I am speaking from memory—the training of the Royal Air Force reservists is not to begin until next year and will eventually reach a ceiling of 30,000 men. It is a stop-gap measure which the Government undertook with great reluctance because they did not know what to do with these part-time Royal Air Force National Service men. Is the Home Secretary now telling us that the number is to be limited to 30,000 men, because there were 100,000 men who last year did no part-time training and who could also be used for this service?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I was going on to explain the position. The hon. Gentleman appreciates my side of the problem,

and I do not want to make any false point. In the first year it will be 15,000 men and in the second year 30,000 men. From the Home Office point of view, there is a great deal of work to be done, and I should like to put that aspect of the matter to the Committee.

Mr. Ede: On a point of order. I understand that the power to do this will be provided for by a Bill which is now before another place. Though I am not anxious to prevent the right hon. and learned Gentleman from taking us as far as possible into his confidence on this and similar matters, nevertheless if he makes a statement in much detail on this subject the probability is that other hon. Members will wish to follow him and we might get involved in rules of order. We understand that the Bill now before another place is going to have a happier fate than one or two other Bills that the Government introduced this Session, and that it will come before the House for consideration at a comparatively early moment. This afternoon we do not want to get involved in the discussion of a Bill which we shall have full opportunity of discussing in a few weeks' time.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: On that point of Order, Sir Charles, may I say that I was very conscious of that point? That was why the course which I was pursuing was simply to repeat, not word for word but the substance of, what my hon. Friend had said. Then I was going to pass to the work that would have to be done by the civil departments in relation to any scheme for providing manpower for mobile columns, whether the House eventually accepted the Bill or not, because that is on my Vote and is something for which I am responsible. So I was really passing from the Bill to the Home Office work, and I thought that kept just within the rules of order.

The Chairman: Yes, the right hon. and learned Gentleman did say that.

Mr. Austen Albu: I am not certain what your Ruling is, Sir Charles. Do I understand that it will not be in order to discuss the use of R.A.F. reservists in mobile columns when we come to discuss the whole organisation of civil defence?

The Chairman: It can be discussed on the various Votes, but to discuss legislation would be out of order.

Mr. Wigg: With respect, Sir Charles, the Bill that is to be introduced deals with the powers to call up those men, who are amenable to military law but who will come under the control of the civil authorities for civil defence purposes. That is not the point we want to discuss. We want to discuss civil defence and I thought that was well within the rules of order.

The Chairman: Yes, but that was not the question I was asked.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Arising out of that point of order, Sir Charles, you referred to various Votes that are in the Estimates. There is a Vote here for civil defence in Scotland. Should not a Scottish Minister be here? Is Scotland not interested in civil defence?

The Chairman: That is not a point of order.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I was passing, Sir Charles, keeping within the spirit and the letter of your Ruling, I think, to deal with Home Office responsibility and to explain to the House that the depots will be Home Department establishments, each staffed by a civilian commandant and civilian instructors, although the control and administration of the men will remain with the R.A.F. In war, the men would be mobilised by the Air Ministry into R.A.F. formations, taking the form of mobile columns, which would be under the same operational control as the Civil Defence Services.
On the best estimate which can at present be made, some 15,000 men will become available each year. Thus, in the first year, 15,000 will be under training and in each subsequent year, with two intakes, approximately 30,000. Over six years' operation of the scheme, at that rate, we shall have created a reserve of nearly 100,000 men, who will be allocated in roughly equal numbers to fire-fighting and rescue duties.
I only want to say this, and then I will leave this aspect of the matter. I recognise that the scheme goes only part of the way towards providing the whole-time manpower for mobile columns that the Civil Defence Services would require in war, but I think that in present circumstances it is a sufficient contribution as a first step.
The scheme will, I hope, start next spring—this was the point I wanted to put to the Committee. Whatever is the plan actually approved by the House—as we know, the House can make its suggestions with regard to the Bill—there is a great deal of preliminary work to be done by the civil Departments for the training of mobile column personnel, and all of that is being pushed forward with drive and energy. The Epsom establishment, suitably extended—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I beg pardon.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Somebody groaned.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am most grateful for any interjection, but I do not know that that one helped very much.
As I have said, the Epsom establishment, suitably extended, will be used as one training centre and, after an exhaustive search, two other establishments have so far been found, one for rescue training at Horsforth, near Leeds, and the other for fire training near Preston. Extensive alterations will be necessary to adapt the existing premises for their new purpose and bring the accommodation up to the required standards.
Moreover it is essential that the centres should be properly equipped with training facilities which, in the case of the rescue training centres, must obviously include a rescue training ground.
There is, therefore, much physical work to be done before the centres can be opened and, in addition, a considerable instructional staff has to be recruited, trained and organised, and all this is in hand. In the second year, additional centres to provide for the doubled number of men under training will be needed and one at least of these will be situated in Scotland.
I recognise that this is only a beginning, but we are working out the further problems primarily concerned with securing that the columns formed by these men, if our scheme is agreed to by the House, are at their posts and ready for action before the outbreak of war. Thus we shall be concerned to see that arrangements are formulated for training N.C.Os. and officers for the columns, and for the unit training of the personnel. The best localities for mobilisation centres from the operational point of


view will have to be settled, and a layout and establishment for such a centre worked out. On our intended plan, mobilisation arrangements will have to be worked out with the Air Ministry. I must not go into detail, but on that I should like to say how much help I have had already.

Mr. Crossman: May I ask a question on an obscure point? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that they will be there before war breaks out. In the case of an armoured division, we know either that it is one which will be called up as a reserve for use in war or that it is there in peace. Will there be mobile columns in peace-time, or is the Home Secretary saying, "We will have a good guess when war comes and get one going if we can before"?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: What I intended to indicate was that the cadre of trained officers would be there, that the columns would receive unit training in the work of mobile columns, and that arrangements would be made in order, if possible, to secure a period of mobilisation before the outbreak of war.

Mr. Crossman: So that, in brief, the answer to me is, no, they will not be there in peace-time?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The cadre will be there and the trained men will be there and in that way there will be a basis. I should be glad to know what the hon. Gentleman ultimately suggests. If he suggests, as has been suggested, that it would be better to have 6,000 men employed in mobile columns throughout the period of peace than to have 100,000 partly trained men, I disagree with him entirely. In my view, it would be a ridiculous method of approach.

Mr. Crossman: In the Armed Forces one wants a reserve to be called up in the event of war, a minimum force available in peace-time, but 6,000 men in mobile columns in this country would do more good than 80,000 men sitting on their backsides in Suez.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I entirely disagree with the hon. Member. From the point of view of civil defence, of course, one would like to have both.

Mr. Crossman: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will not get them.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: But if there is a choice, I disagree with the hon. Member fundamentally. I do not think that the hon. Member has thought it out at all. I do not think that he has considered how civil defence training differs from the training of the Armed Forces. I say that from the friendliest point of view. The hon. Member has already done me the honour of writing articles about my views on civil defence and I should be very interested to find whether he has a constructive proposal to put forward.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Mr. Emrys Hughesrose—

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have a great deal of ground to cover and I have given way many times. I hope that the Committee will allow me to go on to the important point of the operational organisation of the Civil Defence Corps.
One of the most important aspects of planning is to provide an adequate operational organisation to control the employment of both local and mobile services. I should like to take the Committee through the various levels of control starting with the local authority, whose task it is, so long as it can discharge it, to deal with the effects of attack, using its own forces and any that are sent to its aid as reinforcements, from whatever source. All Corps authorities have been asked to appoint a suitable person as controller-designate and all but a few have already done so. The controllers-designate are now familiarising themselves with their task and are co-ordinating local planning and the organisation and training of the local divisions of the Civil Defence Corps.
Some local authorities have formed themselves into larger groups, for operational purposes, and will in due course be appointing a group controller to assume overall responsibility. This is a mode of organisation which is under review, since, with the greater damage, the extension of the group system would appear to be desirable. In the London area, the groups are formed into subregions, each of which would have, in war, a sub-regional commissioner, but this level of control does not exist elsewhere in the country. Again, we are examining the possibility of extending the use of the sub-region to other areas.
Then we have the civil defence regions, which would each have a regional com


missioner in war, on whom would rest the responsibility for reinforcing attacked areas and deciding priorities where more than one part of the region was attacked at the same time. In a future war of the kind which we must envisage, we must be prepared for regional direction of our affairs in case communication with the seat of Government is impossible. I am ensuring that there will be a complete regional organisation. I shall not give details but as an example I remind the Committee that I appointed a considerable time ago regional scientific advisers. I recently attended their conference at the Civil Defence Staff College and I believe that their work is going on well. Finally, there is the central Government, keeping in touch with operations through the central Government war room.
Before I leave the subject of the chain of command, I should like to say something about our plans for developing operational co-ordination. This has two aspects. First, there is the need for coordination between the local or static forces and the mobile columns, and then for co-ordination between the civil forces and the military forces which would, so far as circumstances allowed, be available to help. It has for some time been recognised that additional machinery is needed for this purpose both at the national and the regional level. It would, however, have been putting the cart before the horse if we had attempted to deal with it before the foundations of a mobile force had been laid. From what I have already said, it will be clear that, although mobile columns do not yet exist, the manpower for them is in sight and we are therefore ready to proceed with the next step.
We propose to appoint an officer with the style of Commander-in-Chief designate of the Civil Defence Mobile Forces. The full scope of his duties will not be rigidly defined but his immediate task will be to collaborate with his opposite numbers in the Armed Forces in securing that the development of plans for civil defence mobile columns are in harmony with military plans and to co-ordinate plans for the employment of the former in aid of the local civil defence forces. In war, he would be in operational control of all civil defence mobile columns. His functions will extend to Scotland as well as

England, and arrangements are being made with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland as to the manner in which he should discharge those functions in respect of Scotland.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Where is he?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: For the present, it is proposed that the appointment shall be on a part-time basis, and I am in consultation with my noble Friend the Minister of Defence on the selection of an officer for this post.

Mr. Wigg: Who are the controllers-designate? Is it true that they are the overworked local government officers who are engaged in many other jobs, or is somebody being appointed whose job will be really to understand civil defence?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The person selected depends upon the local authority and the appointment varies from one local authority to another. Some local authorities have found it useful to appoint an official and others have appointed someone specially to the job. I cannot see the objection to leaving it to the local authorities to make the selection.

Mr. Wigg: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not telling the local authorities who will be responsible for mobile columns when they are employed in a particular area, he is landing the local authorities in a bigger muddle than that his own Department is in. Clearly, one may require ex-officers of the Armed Forces with great operational experience if they are to handle very considerable numbers of mobile columns. If that is not to be the job, then it might well be left to the local authorities.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Member has got the position completely wrong. He has confused the position of mobile columns and the position of local forces. The local forces operate under local authority direction and control. The local authority appoints its controller-designate. The mobile columns are central Government forces which will operate either under the central Government or regionally. I have foreshadowed the appointment and I am discussing the finding of the man who will do a triple job in relation to mobile columns. He will command mobile columns in the area, will ensure that there is a proper


liaison between the mobile columns and the Armed Forces and will see that the mobile forces are in a position usefully and properly to co-operate with the local authorities.

Mr. Ian Mikardo: All on a part-time basis.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: With a staff. He will be in the same position relatively, mutatis mutandis, as the Commander-in-Chief designate of the Home Forces who, I think, was appointed by the last Administration on a similar basis.

Mr. Albu: Mr. Alburose—

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am sorry. I have given way many times and I must go on.

Mr. Abu: But this is very important. It is the first new appointment announced by the Home Secretary.

The Chairman: A number of hon. Members wish to make speeches I know, and the Home Secretary is trying to proceed as quickly as he can. I hope that he will be allowed to proceed.

Mr. Wigg: Surely it is to the advantage of the Committee to understand what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, even if he does not understand it himself?

The Chairman: I do not think there is any need to be offensive about it. I think the Home Secretary should be allowed to make his speech, which I have been able to follow without interrupting him.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have dealt with the Civil Defence Corps and I want to say a word about the operational organisation of the Fire Service. In parallel, the Fire Service at present operates under the chief fire officers of the local authorities, but it has been agreed with all concerned that the Fire Service would become a national organisation in war. To assist with the making of plans for the war-time service, selected chief fire officers have been appointed as chief regional fire officers-designate. The National Fire Service would be organised in three or four large fire areas, in each region, with a fire commander, responsible to the chief regional fire officer, in charge of each.
The arrangements I have been describing are those for England and Wales. In Scotland, it is not proposed to have a

regional commissioner; the responsibility for the central control of civil defence operations will be undertaken by the Secretary of State. The central area of Scotland has been divided into two zones, and a zone controller—already appointed—will co-ordinate the civil defence resources in each zone. There will similarly be a chief fire officer, already designated, with co-ordinating responsibility in each zone.
That is the chain of command from local authority level upwards and I have said that we are considering whether some modifications to it are desirable. I shall be only too pleased to consider any suggestions which are made in the debate. But another problem arises from the new scale of attack: the siting of the places from which control would be exercised, and that is a very important matter.
Clearly we cannot, in view of the areas of damage now envisaged, site each and every control room so that it can be guaranteed to be immune from the effects of attack, and we are therefore giving thought to the introduction, as a supplementary means of control, of mobile control units at the various levels. We have already issued a memorandum to local authorities on the use of mobile control units for the conduct of operations in the field below local authority level.
With mobility, we feel confident that we shall achieve in the field the flexibility that will enable us to meet any scale of attack. The principle of mobility must extend upward through the chain and, just as our thoughts are fixed on securing mobility in the Civil Defence Services themselves, so must we work out methods of securing it at all levels in the control of those services. This is a matter with which local authorities are deeply concerned, and it is our intention to let them have guidance as soon as possible. I do apologise to the Committee for taking so long, but all these subjects are of great importance, and I am trying to give a general picture.
I now turn to the air-raid warning system. The problems facing the Civil Defence Services would obviously be vastly intensified if we did not provide an efficient air-raid warning system and, indeed, the provision of such a system


must be one of the highest priorities in civil defence. The warning system, which was virtually dismantled at the end of the last war, is therefore being re-established.
As before, it is designed to employ information made available by the Control and Report Organisation of the Royal Air Force, and steps have been taken to provide the necessary accommodation and communications at the appropriate Royal Air Force and Royal Observer Corps centres and to recruit a cadre of warning officers. A training school for warning officers has been set up and is in operation. By the end of March, the great majority of the sirens needed had been installed and were in working order, and good progress is being made with the installation of equipment for the simultaneous control of groups of sirens in urban areas.
I am sure it will be appreciated that, owing to the greatly increased speed of modern aircraft, the practical difficulties in operating a successful warning system are incomparably greater than those encountered in the last war. A study is therefore being made of possible means of distributing warning messages more rapidly than is practicable by normal means of ordinary telephonic communication. It might well be necessary, however, to sound the sirens simultaneously over considerably larger areas than was done in the last war. The provision of a warning system, capable of giving a useful public warning, has therefore reached an advanced stage but, as in other aspects of civil defence, the more powerful bomb calls for a review of plans, and attention is therefore being directed to providing a wider insurance against any widespread failure of telephone circuits.
No matter how efficient a warning system may be, however, it can do no more than help to reduce the number of casualties. These are bound to be many and the arrangements for the casualty services are therefore a matter of prime concern. The possibility of more widespread areas of damage makes it necessary to reconsider the plans for the use of existing hospital accommodation, and this is one of the matters which is currently under review.
Like so many civil defence measures, this one is not easy to solve and it would be foolish to predict any speedy pronouncements. But, any increase in the number of casualties is bound to place an additional burden on the available, and necessarily limited, medical and nursing manpower. That, in itself, is a sufficient reason why more and more suitable people should volunteer for service with the National Hospital Service Reserve.
It will be noticed that I have talked simply of the problems arising from increased areas of damage and increased numbers of casualties and that I have made no mention of a revision of the method of treating casualties. I have been into this very carefully and I have come to the conclusion that no such revision is necessary. As is the case with the other services which I have mentioned, the knowledge we already possess and the training we have already given is still valid in the light of the new scale of attack.
I now turn to the question of the homeless. Just as there are bound to be many casualties if an attack occurs, so there will be many homeless: and, here again, plans must be reviewed in order to make them capable of dealing with the increased size of the problems. The fundamental aim in dealing with the homeless is to get them under cover as speedily as possible and existing plans for the use of rest centres, temporary billeting and so on are therefore being given the closest scrutiny.
As hon. Members know, we had some experience of this problem in an entirely different connection in the East Coast floods and we have seen the operation of rest centres for which there is a sudden call. This is a point which is being given the closest scrutiny, as are the plans for accommodation and emergency feeding. There again, we are trying to secure an increased mobility in the emergency feeding services.
In addition, there is the question of clothing and the collection of information about persons missing and the like. It is not possible to find easy solutions to any of these problems. Indeed, one must make it clear that it is not only a problem for the authorities but for the homeless themselves in being trained to help themselves and their fellows. We have


to face the fact that if these conditions came about—that is the problem we are facing today—people would have to face hardships and lower standards if they were dispersed or became homeless. I am sure that if we work out these plans we shall have the co-operation of the people, on whose morale and self-reliance their success depends.

Mr. Crossman: May I ask a question about emergency feeding? I gather that the Home Secretary wants to make it more mobile. Does that mean more mobile but still under the local authority, or will it be under the mobile column? What does "mobile" mean?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The Ministry of Food is responsible for mobile feeding arrangements. Local authorities would no doubt consider the problem themselves, but in addition there would be the central Government mobile feeding arrangements made by the Ministry of Food. There was an exhibition of them a short time ago. It is an existing service which has operated successfully in other forms.

Mr. Crossman: So that if an incident occurred there would be a central organisation which would bring into it mobile feeding arrangements? Would that be part of the mobile column or would there be another mobile column concerned with feeding arrangements?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The mobile columns which I described earlier are columns dealing with rescue work and fires. I am now referring to the mobile feeding arrangements of the Ministry of Food, and they would operate as the hon. Gentleman says, but they are not part of the mobile columns which are to deal with rescue and fire. There is a separate organisation dealing with food. [Interruption.] I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman reflects for a moment he will understand that the rescue and fire services and the columns that would help them would probably be operating near the scene of destruction, and it might well be necessary to have mobile feeding arrangements operating not only there but in other districts to which people had been moved. Therefore, the two things should operate together but not under one command.

Mr. Crossman: Not under one command? There are two commands? I want to get that clear.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Yes, there are two commands.

Mr. J. T. Price: Since by general consent the Ministry of Food is in course of voluntary liquidation, who will perform those functions when the process has been completed?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The appropriate successor to the Ministry of Food. But that, as Mr. Kipling says, is another story—and a different debate.
I was dealing just now with those homeless who would be forced to leave their dwellings as a physical result of enemy attack. There are the other people who it is planned should leave their homes before the attack occurs—those who are evacuated to areas where their lives will be more safe. The existing plans for evacuation are receiving the most urgent attention of the Civil Defence Joint Planning Staff since on the arrangements for evacuation many of our other plans depend. The disposition of the other Civil Defence Services, the arrangements for emergency feeding, indeed, almost any aspect of the whole wide range of civil defence, is influenced by the evacuation policy.
It is clear, as I have said, that the new bombs have accentuated the need for evacuation, and the boundaries of the evacuation areas will have to be redefined. From the revised evacuation areas, it is also necessary to consider what additional categories of people can be evacuated.
I cannot at the moment give any details of how this replanning is likely to work out, since there must be a great deal of thinking and discussion both among Government Departments and between the Government and the local authorities before an equitable and practicable scheme can be devised. I wish to assure the House that it is receiving urgent attention, and that we are making progress with it. We are faced with the position that, on the one hand, there is a limit to the numbers of people that certain areas of the country can be expected to accommodate, and, on the other hand, some people must stay to carry on the essential jobs without which the life of the community could not continue. That is the clash of requirements which has to be resolved, and we are doing our best to do it.
To some extent linked with the problem of evacuation is the problem of shelter, and I should like to begin by referring to the statement which was made by my predecessor in the House on 9th November, 1950. I will read the three main paragraphs in that statement. He said:
In the event of a future war, there are likely to be heavy casualties. It was not possible in the last war and it would not be possible in the future to provide complete immunity from attack from the air. I am advised that it is technically feasible to provide shelter which would go far to reduce casualties from all forms of attack. The best forms of shelter in common use in the last war would again be very valuable, and a higher grade of protection against atomic effects is being considered for areas which seem likely to be selected as targets for atomic attack.
Then the right hon. Gentleman went on:
It would not be possible to provide shelter on any significant scale without making heavy calls on labour and materials much needed for other purposes, and it is therefore essential that, as and when resources can be made available for shelter work, they should be applied to the best possible advantage. For this purpose careful planning is essential and it has been decided to request local authorities for areas considered likely to be targets for attack to survey the areas in question, to assess the amount of additional shelter needed and to formulate proposals as to how it will best be provided."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 1124.]
He then went on to say that to assist local authorities in that task, it was proposed to provide them with a "Memorandum of Technical Guidance on the provision of Air Raid Shelter," which had been prepared by the Ministry of Works, and a memorandum prepared by his Department and entitled "Planning for provision of Air Raid Shelter for the public," which would indicate the lines on which it was thought that planning should proceed.
I have more than once had occasion to remind myself of what the right hon. Gentleman said on that date and I am bound to say that, given the circumstances which then existed, I could not have improved on it myself. But it was, of course, as he will agree, concerned with long-term planning. The conditions have, however, changed since then. As I have already said, my predecessor was not thinking in terms of heavy atomic attack, and I have to contemplate a graver state of things.
As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, it is not possible in war to provide complete immunity from attack and the question is whether it is feasible to provide such a degree of protection as to effect a reduction of casualties and a strengthening of morale commensurate with the effort and expenditure involved. This is not a question of bomb-proof shelter, which in general was not attempted in the last war and would not, on any view, be feasible. It is a question whether, having regard to the probable scale of attack and the range of destruction by new weapons, any worth-while plans can be made.
The Committee will not expect a final pronouncement on this point today, but it is obvious that the difficulties have been immensely increased. I can assure the House that the most careful and thorough study of the technical and other problems involved will be made before a decision is reached, but I am sure it would be the general wish of the House that, on the one hand, we should not embark on any large expenditure unless we were satisfied that it would be useful and that, on the other hand, we should not minimise the difficulties which confront us.
I should like to say a few words—I am conscious of the draft I am making on the time of the Committee—with regard to civil defence in industry. I said that we had already got 150,000 people in our Industrial Civil Defence Service. They are, of course, primarily designed to deal with the defence of the undertaking in which they are employed. I am, however, very anxious that they should respond to the appeal which I have made to them to co-operate with the local authority services and operate on a wider front.
I wish also to say a word about the question of fire fighting, about which the hon. Gentleman asked me. I have already referred to the strength of the Auxiliary Fire Service and to the steps we are taking to nationalise the Fire Service in time of war. I indicated that the National Fire Service is planned to be essentially a mobile service, with the bulk of the personnel and equipment organised into mobile columns available for operation anywhere. We have accorded high priority to the modern equipment that this service will require, and considerable


numbers of specially designed fire-fighting appliances are on order, of which nearly half will have been completed by the end of this year. Control units, wireless units, hose-laying and pipe-carrying lorries are also being developed.
Adequate supplies of water are essential, and this formed one of the most troublesome problems in the last war when normal supplies broke down. We have passed the stage of planning in this respect. Considerable success has been achieved in developing light-weight piping made from aluminium and plastic materials, and experiments so far show that this piping can be carried on lorries in considerable quantities and rapidly laid. Experiments have been made in the rapid construction of water basins and in the development of light-weight collapsible tanks, and these are continuing. And so we have made some progress in that direction.
Arrangements are being made, with the co-operation of the Surrey County Council—which I gladly acknowledge—to use the new fire brigade headquarters at Reigate for experiments in the use of the new equipment, and later as a training centre at which selected members of brigades and the Auxiliary Fire Service can be trained.
Regarding equipment, the Government have decided upon and begun to build up stocks of essential equipment. Priority has been given to the equipment needed for training purposes and the equipment which would be urgently required in war, and which could not be produced at short notice, such as radiac instruments and the fire-fighting appliances and equipment which I have already mentioned. There are, of course, always delays and disappointments in the production of equipment of new designs, but, generally, we are now getting it without delay and also building up useful operational stocks.
I have tried to cover the subjects which seemed to me of the greatest importance in relation to civil defence. I can only apologise for taking so much time, but I think I have dealt with, at any rate, 80 per cent. of the interruptions which have been made.
In conclusion, I would say that the picture which I have had to paint is necessarily a sombre one. I think that

everyone will agree, whatever may be their views, that it is useless to ignore the fact that hydrogen bombs and the ability to deliver them exist. As I said, it is the supreme task of any Government to try to prevent attack by these bombs by avoiding war itself. But if war is to come—which is something we all wish to avoid—then everyone of us must take such measures as we can to mitigate the consequences. We must take them with the realisation that the life of the country in peacetime must go on and that its economic position must be retained. That is the problem, and I have tried to show the methods by which I think that the perils and the results of attack can be mitigated.
It is very difficult—and those who have been in office will know it already, while those who have not will find it out when their turn comes—when you are criticised not to defend yourself.

Mr. Mikardo: Sometimes it is difficult to defend yourself.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: La Fontaine expressed that truth in a fable some 300 years ago. But I wish to make clear that I am here to be criticised and to listen to any criticism made and to hear, as I hope I shall, from hon. Gentlemen opposite constructive suggestions about how they would deal with the problem which faces the country as a whole.
There is only one thing I would ask of them. It has nothing to do with myself. It is that when they are making their criticisms they will think for a moment of the fact that nearly 600,000 people have come forward as volunteers to work in the civil defence services. Will they consider whether what they have to say—however stringently it may be directed at me, and I make no complaint about that—will have the effect of discouraging those who have come forward—sometimes with considerable difficulty—and done their training, or part of it; and secondly, whether it will discourage other people from coming forward and taking their part? That is all I ask.
I am sure that we all agree—I say this with complete sincerity—that there can be no defeatism at any level among those charged with the conduct of civil defence, and to meet this increased threat we must all plan and act with increased vigour.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. Ede: The reaction of every Member who has heard the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and everyone who will read it, will be, what a mad world we are living in—that after two great wars we should be faced again with this appalling problem which oppressed me for every moment that I was in office. It has now become quite clear that the objective for which we all fought, namely, a world in which the threat of war would have disappeared, has not been attained. What I said four years ago was appropriate at that time. But in four years the resources of science and their application to the business of war have so altered the whole position that what might have sounded reasonable then can only be regarded today as a very poor estimate of what the future will hold.
I wish to take just one point from what has been said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. As I understood him, a hydrogen bomb bursting over Charing Cross could cause a fire 15 miles away; that is to say, such a bomb might quite well set fire to Epsom grandstand.

Mr. M. Follick: That is very serious.

Mr. Ede: I do not say that that would be particularly disastrous, but it does indicate the gravity of the picture and what this thing means.

Mr. Follick: Let us hope that Ascot will be all right.

Mr. Ede: I hope we shall not discuss this matter in that spirit. We are all in this together no matter what our social position or our virtues and vices may be. What it means is that one bomb might cause the whole of the Metropolitan police district, which is based on the 15-mile radius from Charing Cross, to be an area that would need the immediate attention of such forces as might be available. That gives some graphic idea of the tremendous problems with which we have to deal in this discussion.
I do not grudge the right hon. and learned Gentleman a minute of the time that he took. In this the last of the great free assemblies of the world, where no Senator McCarthy or anybody else can

ask for us to be brought back home from abroad because he wants to examine us for military service, it is essential that we should speak not merely to our own people but to the world of the danger in which everyone stands. Let us rest assured that what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said in some of the earlier sentences of his speech will probably be only too well justified by events if the awful moment ever comes when these weapons will be used by both sides. Let no one who contemplates dropping one assume that even if he gets in quick he will not have to face the consequences. That is an appalling statement to have to make in view of the illustration I have used in which I have tried to make quite plain what we have to do.
The only thing that one can say with regard to defence is that this may well be a matter of time, and we should do well to bear in mind an old proverb that he who runs against time has an adversary not liable to casualty. I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee when I say that we all trust that the efforts being made by this country for the establishment of the rule of law and the wiping out of the dread appeal to force in international affairs may be successful, but we must ask that, while there can be no foolish promise of providing immunity, what can be done shall be done to ensure that the loss of life and the damage to property shall be reduced as far as possible and that, in the event of the struggle coming, we shall have made such preparations as can be made to deal with the situation.
I accept the phrases the right hon. and learned Gentleman used that, should it come, whether it come here or elsewhere in the world, it will be a tragedy without any previous parallel in history. I am certain that nothing we can say today can adequately express what the awful event would be.
I was sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman made no reference to the criticisms made on civil defence in the First Report of the Select Committee on Estimates this year, particularly because it criticised me as much as it criticised him. He has virtually said that he carried on with the policy that he found. Just as the sombre shadow of the atomic bomb caused me to revise some of my estimates.


so the greater problem of the hydrogen bomb has intensified the difficulties that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has had to face. Some reference should have been made to that.
I was glad of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said at the end of his speech about not discouraging the volunteers who have come forward at times when it has not always been very easy to persuade people to give up their spare time. One feature that rather oppresses me is that so many of the people who are in the present Civil Defence Services are in fact the people who were in the last Civil Defence Services. In the circumstances of the last war they were in the main people who for one reason or another—age, minor infirmity or some other reason—were not eligible for service in the military forces. Those who were then of the kind of age that was regarded as suitable are 10 years older now and, if trouble came, the demands on such physical resources as they have would be infinitely greater than they were last time.
I do not think that in future we can regard the Civil Defence Services as of necessity suitable for people who are physically incapable of the strain of military service. Therefore, we shall examine the Bill that the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned, but I do not think that I need say any more than that that will be one of the considerations which we must have in mind when we consider the reasons for bringing it forward. The right hon. and learned Gentleman can no longer expect that the backbone of the Civil Defence Services can be formed by people so old or suffering from such physical defect as debars them from military service.
I do not think that at any time the civil defence needs of the country have ever been appropriately considered by the three fighting Services. I am one of those who believes that the British fighting man does not vary much from generation to generation or from war to war. The British fighting man was good at fighting a rearguard action at Waterloo, as he was at Mons and Dunkirk. He rather expects that he will be fighting a rearguard action. It comes as a great surprise to him when he is given the opportunity of doing anything else. That does not apply to the Black Watch, Colonel Gomme-Duncan. But the one

thing that is likely to shake the morale of the British fighting man in battle is the belief that his dependants whom he has left behind are not receiving proper protection when in physical danger.
I see a number of hon. and gallant Members opposite and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) on this side of the Committee, and other hon. Members who, like myself, may be honourable, but who, because we never held a commission are not gallant, and I am quite sure that they will agree with me that the leaders of the fighting services when considering Civil Defence should always bear that point in mind. The only thing that is likely to break the morale of the British Army, no matter how hard pressed it may be, would be the thought that while it was fighting abroad those left behind at home were not receiving the fullest possible protection that could be afforded in the circumstances of the time. I hope that that fact will be borne in mind.
I think the Committee will agree that in making the commandants and staff of the Staff College at Sunningdale and the schools members of a permanent establishment the right hon. and learned Gentleman has given what, I hope, will be confidence to the Civil Defence forces of the country that their needs are to be the subject of permanent study, and that as things progress—if that is the right word to use about some of these devilish inventions—or, at any rate, as things grow more intense, so the work done there and the advice tendered will also be brought up to date.
I am glad that the question of the mobile columns received so prominent a part in the statement made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman this afternoon. I am quite certain that, whatever else we may be in doubt about, we can be in no doubt that, in the event of our being involved in a war in which the weapons we have considered this afternoon are used, we shall have to make arrangements for the moving in of assistance to any area which may be attacked.
The idea that such a war can be at all localised is one that should disappear straight away from everyone's mind, and the siting of the places at which the mobile columns are to be held in readiness and the necessary equipment stored


must be a matter of very serious concern. I welcomed the statement made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, even with regard to local control, mobility in control units was now receiving consideration.
I have heard of some people being compelled to build, or who allege that they are being compelled to build, fixed control rooms above ground. I am bound to say that, in a vulnerable area, I would not expect that such an above-ground fixed control room would be likely to be in existence for very long after the attack commenced. We must get into our minds some idea of a complete mobility that will impose fresh troubles on those responsible for preparing the organisation. At any rate, they will have to expect that a very great deal of improvisation will have to occur should an attack ever come.
I do not propose to enter at this stage into the dispute between the right hon. and learned Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) about the 6,000 men in these units as compared with the 81,000 men in the Canal Zone, but I am concerned that there should be available as soon as possible an adequate number of men fully trained who could act as the skeleton around which something more numerous could be built up. I have no doubt that if the attack came there would be thousands of people rushing to do something—quite ill-equipped to do anything—and success would depend upon our having a sufficient number of people who were, as it were, the officers, warrant officers and potential non-commissioned officers of the mobile columns and of the other Civil Defence forces available to give these people speedy instruction and to organise their first inefficient efforts.
Therefore, I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will realise that, in giving support to the principle of the mobile columns as being the basis upon which most of the effective work will have to be done, as we can only do it on the assumption that these columns will, in as short a time as possible, have a number of people fully trained ready to take over and to go into action if necessary.
I come now to the question of the operational organisation as described by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The problem of the local controller is one of the greatest urgency. May I say that when I held the office now occupied by the right hon. and learned Gentleman I met some of the local jealousies which sometimes exist on this matter. The controller is not necessarily the town clerk. He is not necessarily the chief constable or the city or borough engineer. The local authority should take stock of the personnel that it has, and should choose the man who is best fitted by temperament for this heavy and responsible task.
The idea that any person, because of some other office which he holds inside the municipal heirarchy, is entitled to this post—not because of his abilities but because he was chosen as a lawyer or an engineer to perform quite other duties and to take leadership in quite other spheres—is a thing which might quite easily land us in disaster. I hope that the greatest possible care will be taken by local authorities to make quite sure that they have a man of sufficient resource to be able to deal with the kind of sudden and appalling emergency with which he may be faced, and of sufficient gifts of leadership to be able to inspire people to keep going in very desperate circumstances.
I am very glad to know that some thought is being given to the question of the grouping of some authorities. After all, British local government is such that on occasion some dots are very inconveniently placed on the map when it comes to matters of this kind. Whoever was responsible for placing them there—and some people have ascribed it, I think, to Alfred the Great—were not persons who had any conception of the area over which a hydrogen bomb might spread devastation. It might very well be essential that some of our most populous areas, where the vulnerability is greatest, should have group control, in which the authority of the group ought to be placed very high indeed. I therefore welcome what has been said about that consideration.
I come now to the civil defence regions in which, in wartime, there are to be regional commissioners. I hope that the list of prospective regional commissioners is kept up to date. Like other people, they do not improve with advancing age—and


I am in a position to be able to say that without anyone saying that I am jealous. I sincerely hope that they will be getting to know their regions and establishing with the civil authorities the relationship which will enable them should they ever be called into action to deal appropriately and quickly with any emergencies.
I must say that I have some doubts about the national organisation which the right hon. and learned Gentleman outlined. In the first place, I very much doubt whether the commander-in-chief designate of the civil defence mobile columns ought to be a part-time officer. What is he doing with the rest of his time? I understand that when General Dempsey was appointed he was to give full time to the job. At any rate, he was doing a very nice job for me at the Home Office as chairman of the Betting Control Board. I do not imagine that that job took a very great part of his time, but in order to take over the post of commander-in-chief, Home Forces, he thought it necessary to resign it.
I would have thought that this was a job which required a man's whole time. I understand that there has not yet been any selection, and I urge on the right hon. and learned Gentleman that if he really wishes to give a sense of urgency to the people with whom this officer will be acting it is desirable that he should be full time. Here again, it is essential that this man should get to know the people in the civil sphere with whom he will be acting. In this country some suspicion always exists between the civil and the military authority. A man who, presumably, has been trained in the military sphere and who for the success of his operations has to rely on co-operation with persons who are steeped in the civil tradition, will need a good deal of time to make himself acquainted with those people and to understand some of the angles from which they approach problems and which may very well make them differ from him.
I think that he has a pretty big job to do. It was described as being a tripartite sort of job. To get co-ordination first between mobile columns and the Services, and then between the mobile columns—which presumably by this time have reached an understanding with the Services—and the civil authorities will be a pretty heavy task. It will require a man not merely of great ability but of a par

ticular kind of temperament that will ingratiate him with the two distinct parties on either side of him who are apt sometimes not to be pleased by the same person. A person can sometimes please the soldier but not be very acceptable to the civil local controller, who will be approaching things from an entirely different point of view.
Another consideration is the fire services. All the local authorities were warned when they took over the fire services that on the outbreak of war the first thing would be to bring that service under national control. Since they got them back the local authorities have groused so much about the expense and the difficulties which confront them that I hope that no promise will be given to them this time that at the end of the war they will get them back. We should wait and let them come and ask for them next time. I very sincerely hope that serious thought will be given to the question of whether it is necessary to maintain this as part of the local government service.
I hope that nothing that has been said will give people too great a reliance on the air-raid warning in the circumstances of the next war. That is not to say that I do not think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his staff ought not to be giving thought to seeing how effective it can be, but this is a matter where speed has now greatly outdistanced any imagination we had during the last war. It is quite clear that it is an entirely new problem as to whether it would be possible to give any real warning, particularly to those great centres of population, including London, which are situated near to the coast and the probable line of any enemy attack.
I do not quite know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman meant by saying that he was looking for an insurance against the failure of the telephone system. I can well see that one nicely-placed bomb might destroy the whole telephonic communication in a very great area, but by that time, so far as that particular bomb was concerned, either the air-raid warning would have been given or the dropping of the bomb would have indicated that the aircraft coming over at the time was not one of ours.
On the question of casualties, I think that at the beginning of the last war the number of casualties was over-estimated; and, in fact, no single raid ever produced as many casualties as had been thought would be likely. But on some occasions they were very terrible—

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

5.31 p.m.

Whereupon, The GENTLEMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message, The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN left the Chair.

Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

 1. Protection of Animals (Amendment) Act, 1954.
 2. Juries Act, 1954.
 3. Slaughterhouses Act, 1954.
 4. Industrial and Provident Societies (Amendment) Act, 1954.
 5. Edinburgh Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1954.
 6. Ferguson Bequest Fund Order Confirmation Act, 1954.
 7. Dunoon Burgh Order Confirmation Act, 1954.
 8. London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1954.
 9. Newcastle upon Tyne Corporation Act, 1954.
10. Tees Conservancy Act, 1954.
11. City of London (Various Powers) Act, 1954.
12. London County Council (Money) Act, 1954.

SUPPLY

Again considered in Committee.

[Sir RHYS HOPKIN MORRIS in the Chair]

Question again proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £70, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Civil Defence for the year ending on 31st March, 1955, namely:


Civil Estimates, 1954–55



£


Class III, Vote 1, Home Office
10


Class III, Vote 2, Home Office (Civil Defence Services)
10


Class I, Vote 25, Scottish Home Department
10


Class III, Vote 15, Scottish Home Department (Civil Defence Services)
10


Class V, Vote 4, Ministry of Health
10


Class V, Vote 1, Ministry of Housing and Local Government
10


Class VII, Vote 1, Ministry of Works
10


Total
£70

CIVIL DEFENCE

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I had just reached the stage in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech in which he dealt with casualties. In the circumstances that we are contemplating this afternoon, it is quite clear that the number of casualties would impose a tremendous strain upon any organisation which the Minister of Health, who is the designated Minister for dealing with the hospital service, could possibly build up. We are dealing in terms of such numbers that we cannot do much more than recognise the immense nature of the problem that will have to be dealt with, and express the hope that the appeal made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman for more and more recruits for the appropriate voluntary services will be heard and will meet with a response.
The next problem with which the Home Secretary dealt was that of the homeless. That problem must stagger anyone who spends a second in contemplating it. On the assumption that one well-placed hydrogen bomb could cause different degrees of devastation to the whole Metropolitan Police area, one must ask oneself how human ingenuity could deal with the vast problem that would be created. Where are we going to put the people who have been rendered homeless by such a catastrophe?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: What is the answer?

Mr. Ede: My hon. Friend is very good at asking questions. I am hoping to hear him give an answer one day; it will be a welcome change. Although Socrates obtained a great reputation by continually asking questions proving that everyone else was wrong, the sticky end to which he came ought to be a warning to my hon. Friend.
Our enemies in the last war believed that by bombing London they could create panic. They probably had no greater disappointment than when, soon after that war began, that belief was not substantiated by the action of our people. But the problem involved in this case is infinitely greater than that which London or any of the great cities had to face then. I want to pay a tribute to the fortitude shown by those civilians who had to endure perils which had never been faced by civilians before.
I hope that this problem and the linked problem of evacuation will be additional incentives to the people of the world to realise that it is no stretch of the imagination to say that the next conflict will see the end of civilisation as we know it. The destruction of the whole of the Metropolitan Police district, which includes some places which are more important than London, ought to bring home to everybody the fact that the most important problem is that of establishing something better and more sensible than war as a means of settling such differences as are bound to arise among reasonable men, and that the answer must be discovered if we do not wish to go back to some future dark ages, which might very well be even more gloomy for mankind than were the last.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman talked about increased mobility for emergency feeding services, and what we were able to do during the East Coast floods about the problem of rest centres, but they were examples that seemed to me very far from the reality of the appalling problems which will face us and from the remedy we must use to overcome them if this atomic war ever comes about. I am not quite sure what he meant when he talked about training the homeless in giving help. I rather imagine that everybody will expect that he will be able to

give help but may find, when the time comes, that he is the person in need of help rather than the person who is able to give it.
While I would put as high a trust in the morale of this people as any one, I can see a situation that could arise in which the most one could hope for would be merely a dreary acquiesence in the misery surrounding everyone. For the same reason I was not very much reassured by his use of the phrase "equitable and practical scheme" for evacuation. It seemed to me that that was a comparatively empty phrase, considering the vulnerability of our industrial areas now and the necessity of maintaining some life in them if the struggle, should it come, is to be carried one.
There is just one thing I want to say about the general nature of the question. I know that there is some talk that the whole of civil defence should be handed over to the military for organisation and control. I should not myself regard that as an ideal solution for this kind of problem. I agree that the mobile columns may need to be under military control and leadership, but I think the sorts of services of which I have been talking since our return from another place are services that, in this country, can be best organised by an experienced and resilient local government service. They will need a good deal of preparation, but, on the other hand, in so far as the problem can be met at all it will be best met by relying on the continuation of civilian control. The mobile columns must come in to do the first of the heavy work in rescue and in fighting fires, and so on, but the other problems are still best left to the civilian services.
I was glad to hear what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had to say about the provision of equipment for the fire fighting services and the building up of operational stocks for them. I think that at the moment they should be kept under central control and that there should be arrangements made by which they can be readily made available in time of need, and dispersed should emergency appear to be near. A great many services, such as water supplies, will be required on a scale that we did not even contemplate in the last war.
It will be remembered that after we had had some experience in the last war, the


River Thames was used, by a series of pumps installed on the bridges, for supplying water when it was necessary. I trust that that kind of scheme will be considered for the waterways in the neighbourhoods of all the big centres of population and in other areas deemed to be vulnerable. Because of the penetrating power of some of the high explosive bombs that may be expected, in addition to the atomic and hydrogen weapons, it may be that the ordinary piped water supplies, on which our great cities rely, will be rendered ineffective at the moment when they are most needed.
My hon. Friend murmurs something about the cobalt bomb. No one believes that we have reached the end of the miseries that science, wrongly applied, can devise for us. That ought to make us all the more intent on dealing with the situation in such a way as to put even the modern application of science in its proper place in human relationships, particularly between nation and nation. Let us face up to this, that the appalling increase in power over the material things of the universe is appalling only because the moral power of mankind has not kept pace with man's tremendous acquisition of power over the physical universe. We discuss these things under the grim shadow that hangs over us. This is not so much a challenge to our military preparedness as a challenge throughout the world to the spirit of man, a challenge to insist that these great powers shall be used with a moral judgment always in mind.
I can think of no worse fate that can befall mankind than that we should be for long at the mercy of one wicked man who might unleash these terrors on the world. It used to be said that it took two to make a quarrel. I am not so sure, in these circumstances, that that is so. In the circumstances that now prevail in the world one man might precipitate the disaster. It used to be said that it took two to make a quarrel, but it seems from the history of the last few years that it takes far more than two to make peace.
I join with the right hon. and learned Gentleman in saying that what we have to contemplate is a sombre picture. I do not think that even he would go beyond saying that it is only just a preliminary

sketch that we are seeing, should any one wish the picture to be completed. While we shall do all we can to help the Government in preparation, and while we trust that throughout the country there will be co-operation in all plans designed to meet the emergency, should it arise, we must still regard the greatest object of all our statesmanship and discussion at this stage of the 20th Century to be an endeavour to ensure that man shall regard reason and not force as the ultimate and rightful arbiter in disputes between men. I sincerely trust that this country will continue to urge upon the nations of the world, now that they are armed with such powers that if they like they can destroy mankind, that it is their duty so to conduct their affairs and so to place themselves under the rule of law as to make it certain that that dread disaster, now so easily obtainable, may never occur.

6.1 p.m.

Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer: It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) in his profound and weighty speech. On this side of the Committee we could disagree with scarcely a single word of it. As we all know, he it was who, at a time when the menace was by no means as obvious as it is today, had the duty of laying the foundations for what the Government of today are trying to carry on and, I hope, accelerate.
There is only one point on which I disagree with both the right hon. Gentleman and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary: they both said that in the event of hostilities this horrible weapon would undoubtedly be used by both sides. I do not believe that to be true. I think there is a great likelihood of it being used, but there is just a faint possibility that, because of its appalling effect, rather in the same way that gas was not used in the last war, both sides may hold their hands. There is just that possibility.
That leads me to my first point: it will only be so if our potential enemies are aware that our preparations are as goods as is possible and that the effect of their retaliation on us will largely be negatived. That is why it is vitally important that we should see that everything is done to make the effect of these bombs as slight as possible.
I deplore, as I am sure does the whole Committee—with one or two obvious exceptions—the attitude of mind of certain myopic civilians who suggest that nothing should be done at all. They surely should realise that preparedness in anything has always been and always will be the greatest deterrent to any action. To adopt the present attitude of mind is to surrender the only initiative which a defender has. The aggressor always has the tactical initiative in his hands; the defender has the strategic initiative, by preparation. If we surrender that initiative, we surrender both. I am quite certain that that attitude of mind is not common throughout the country and is held only by a certain minority—the type of person who might have been prone before the last war to go down to the Super Marine works and tell the workers to stop making Spitfires.
To say that both sides of the Committee have been uneasy as a result of the Report of the Select Committee and of some of the things which we have seen in our constituencies is an understatement, but that is not to say that the Minister or the Under-Secretary of State have been at fault.

Mr. Albu: Who is?

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: The hon. Member knows the answer to that perfectly well, and I challenge him to give it.
The machine which was set up by the right hon. Member for South Shields was a reasonable machine, but it is the way in which it is operating and the attitude of mind of the people who are operating it which alarms me intensely. Civil defence is an operation of war. It is—and lip-service has been paid to this fact—a fourth arm of our defence; but it will never be an effective fourth arm of our defence if it is regarded in the light which is revealed in the Select Committee's Report—that it is merely an extension or adaptation of peace-time activities.
Of all the crass fatuities, that remark takes the biscuit. That is just what it is not; it is more an operation of war today than ever it was, and we want people running it who can understand war. I fully realise that we have to carry our local authorities with us. I fully realise that

very largely this is a local authority matter and that we must have people who understand the mentality of local authorities. But there are many people who have served in the Armed Forces with distinction and who, since the war, have had a great deal of experience in local government work. They have been on county councils borough councils and other local authorities.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) will probably explain this further during the debate, but in his division they have the highest recruiting record in the country. I wonder what is the reason for that. He told me that there is an ex-brigadier—believe it or not; no doubt with charm of manner and tact—who is running the organisation. It is a matter of personality, and I am sure that in those areas where recruiting is not going as well as it ought, we should look carefully at the personalities involved.
I am disappointed that my right hon. and learned Friend made no mention of the suggestion that there should be a Director of Civil Defence. I believe that the time is very shortly coming when we shall have to have a Minister for Home Defence. I am quite certain that in the meantime the Home Secretary, with all the immense area of his responsibilities, is unable to give the time to details which is essential for this type of organisation. In other Government Departments, Ministers can give birth to broad directives, which is all that is required of a Minister, but in this field the Minister must be able to devote more time to the detail of the organisation because, exactly as in the Defence Ministries, it is part and parcel of the defence Services.
I also believe, as I have said previously—although, as far as I know, it has not yet taken place—that the time has come for an overall review of the part-time manpower of the country. Such a review can be based only on the appreciation of the chiefs of staff of the number of permanent manpower required should there be an emergency. Having obtained that appreciation, they should subtract from the total and discover the balance of part-time manpower which will be available in this country for the various—at this time voluntary but quite clearly in an emergency conscripted—services, such as the Observer Corps, the Home


Guard, Civil Defence, Police and Fire Services.
I wonder whether there will be enough manpower to go round. In any case, it is about time somebody started thinking of working out whether there is enough manpower to go round and, if there is not, where the services could be integrated and overlapped. My suggestion is that there is no earthly reason why the Home Guard should not be trained in civil defence in certain areas. I do not say that should apply to all areas. In many areas, however, this is possible, and it is essential that it should be done.
In my electoral constituency in the last war—I do not suppose that anyone knew anything about it outside—there was a proportion of Home Guard trained in civil defence. They were in liaison with the civil defence authorities, and they were perfectly prepared to give them any assistance should the emergency arise. I know how much can be done by a reasonable understanding, contacts and liaison, between people on the spot seeing each other, and agreeing on how things should be done. I am certain that we must do that, and do it fairly soon.
One of the chief topics of my right hon. and learned Friend's speech today was the question of mobile columns. We are, no doubt, debarred by the rules of order from going into that matter too fully, but, as it has been mentioned to a certain extent, I make no apology for doing so. I am a little worried as to how this will work out. I do not believe that there is any other way of doing this unless we take a block of National Service men from the time they are enlisted and put them straight away on to civil defence. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It is all very well for hon. Members to say "hear, hear," but where are we to get them? We are back to the old problem, to which we have never had an answer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Egypt."] I know that I am being led astray in answering that one, but I have said this three or four times in the House.
We have no mobile reserves in this country, which is an alarming situation, and the sooner we have a mobile reserve the better. If we had these 80,000 men from Egypt in this country, they would constitute a vital mobile reserve for use

in emergency. The lesson of France in the last war should never be forgotten. Now we must see what we can do about this new idea.

Mr. Wigg: if the hon. and gallant Gentleman only wanted 6,000 men for his mobile column, it would be quite easy. Take them off Trooping the Colour and all that.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: I would not have given way had I not thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to make a more sensible contribution than the one which is usually made by one of his hon. Friends sitting below the Gangway.
These men are to do a fortnight's training twice. They are to go to this centre to be trained for a fortnight one year and for a fortnight another year. They are only to do it twice over two years, so that means a fortnight's training twice. It is a simple calculation. They are to go to these centres to be trained in rescue work, fire service work, or whatever it may be. What are they to do for the rest of the year? The ordinary Territorial does his weekend camp, weekend courses and night drills in the place where he lives. Are these fellows to be sent, after their fortnight's training, back to their homes to do absolutely nothing?
Many of the National Service men of the R.A.F. are doing nothing at all for their part-time service. I hope that this is not to be continued. Am I not right in thinking that these mobile columns will be based in various areas in the country for operations under their regional commanders? Surely it should not be difficult to organise columns in these areas in a skeleton form, where, if necessary, they are to be used. Surely that is where the weekend training should come in. The vehicles in which they are to operate could be hired for weekend training. The officer who is to command the column would get to know his men and by having small tactical exercises, would get to know the roads and the country in his area. Surely this must be the corollary to the two fortnight's training in demolition and rescue work. I implore the Parliamentary Secretary to realise this.
I am speaking from my own experience, and I think that it should be realised how immensely difficult it is to


train people to drive convoys at night, even with lights. It is even more difficult without them. I had intense experience of this in our training in the early days of the war. I should like to give one example, because I think that examples are valuable in these cases. In the last brigade which I commanded before I went out to the Middle East, when we were training seven days a week and had all the opportunities and facilities available, we were able to get men to move off from any site upon the receipt of a wireless message, and in 35 minutes a whole battalion would be on the road and moving.
When I went to Italy, I had under my command a battalion that had been fighting during the whole of the war, and, in my innocence, I thought that the same thing would happen. It was essential to get the battalion off in a hurry. They were given warning at 11.30 a.m. that they should be on the road by 12.30, and eventually they moved off at 3.30 in the afternoon. This was because they had never been trained to do it. That is what will happen to mobile columns here unless there is someone with experience in training these columns in war to move along roads in the dark and read their maps. Therefore, I hope that someone with military experience will be given this job. We have heard that there will be an overall command, but local commanders must have that sort of experience if they are to be of any value.
I should like to say a word about communications. I am very worried about this. There seems to be a mulish attitude among those people who have to do with civil defence in regard to wireless. The taxi-drivers in London use wireless. The fire services and police also use wireless—but not civil defence. I was reading a report today of a civil defence exercise which had taken place recently. They thought that it would be a good thing if they pretended that all the telephones had been knocked out. As if there would be any chance of any telephones working! The comment on the experiment deplored the amount of paper used in sending written messages—they had run out of paper. I had to read the report twice before I could believe my own eyes. It is as though one were in command of a unit in battle, the telephone lines had been destroyed and a

galloper was sent for on a horse. That makes just about as much sense.
I hope that we shall get down to this question of training people in the use of short and long wave wireless sets. The sort of rubbish talked about the air being cluttered up so that no one would be able to hear is nonsense. The whole of the civil defence control and communications will have to be done by wireless, and nothing else but wireless. No mobile column or regional commander will have the slightest control over that mobile column unless he has first-class wireless operators who are able to operate without having had any sleep for 24 or 48 hours. That calls for a high standard of training and takes a long time to achieve.

Mr. Mikardo: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us which channels he is proposing should be used for the wireless, since all those which are available have been taken up in the interests of commercial television?

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: That interjection does not require a reply either, except, perhaps, to remind the hon. Member, which he may have forgotten, that not only was there in this England a vast army of our soldiers, but there was a vast army of American soldiers. There was a vast number of aircraft in the air; thousand-bomber raids were the order of the day. There were tanks and infantry battalions, and divisions, brigades, and everything else on the air continuously 24 hours a day before D Day in this island. There were plenty of channels available, and nobody ever got into anybody else's way and the whole thing worked like magic. Of course, the wavelengths which the hon. Member talks about for television are miles off any wavelength that could ever conceivably be used in the setup of civil defence.
I do not believe that the Home Secretary today, having all the immense amount of responsibilities which he has, can really pay the attention to detail which is necessary to run this organisation. I hope and pray that soon we will have an independent director of civil defence at the Home Office who is above the two committees, composed of civil servants, who will be directly responsible to the Minister and will be a liaison officer between those committees and the Minister. That independent director must not—I repeat, not—be a civil servant.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. John Dugdale: All of us who have listened to the speech of the Home Secretary will agree that while it was clear, detailed and informative, it was entirely lacking in any sense of urgency. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that what was required was drive and energy. None of us could detect any signs of either drive or energy in his speech, or in his suggestions for dealing with civil defence.
The only thing we heard that was of any interest was that there was to be a spare-time commander-in-chief designate. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), the former Home Secretary, dealt with that point and expressed the misgivings which any of us would have, not only on this side but in all parts of the Committee, at the idea that there should be a commander-in-chief who acts only in his spare time. What would the Army say if it were given a part-time commander-in-chief? What would the Navy or the Air Force say? It is quite intolerable to think that any man, however clever he is, would be able, in part of his time, to do the immense amount of work that is necessary to prepare civil defence.
Apart from that, we heard very little. One thing about which we heard nothing whatever was the Report of the Estimates Committee. One would have thought that that would be something with which the Home Secretary would deal, because it was a Report of great interest to all connected with civil defence and it made a number of strictures on the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Department.
There are two lines that we can take logically with regard to civil defence. The first is the line, which is taken by some people, that it is impossible to do anything and, therefore, we must abandon it all, and decide, once and for all, that we cannot defend ourselves. That is a logical line but a line which, I think, few of us in this Committee would take. If we do take that line, we must, at the same time, say that there is no need to have our other defensive measures—that there is no need to have, for instance, any antiaircraft or any fighter planes; that, in fact, we must give up the idea of defending ourselves.
If we do not intend to do that, we have to take the other line we must treat civil defence seriously. The Government have

not taken the first line. They have decided that £4,700 million shall be spent in a period of three years. Both parties have decided that. The original defence programme was agreed by both parties and it was decided that £4,700 million should be spent in three years on defence.
How much of this sum was civil defence to have? It was to have £225 million, or approximately one-twentieth—not a quarter or one-fifth, which it might be entitled to expect in proportion to its importance, but one-twentieth. But what happened then? Has that one-twentieth been spent? Is there any likelihood that it will be spent? From the Report of the Estimates Committee, I understand that £33 million was spent in the first two years—£33 million as against the vast expenditure on the three Armed Forces.
The Report of the Estimates Committee instances cases of confusion, indecision and delay which are quite intolerable. I would mention just two. It appears that the building of shelters has the lowest priority. The only work that has been done is the survey of suitable sites. Apparently, the London County Council wanted to provide strengthened basements in any new building work. This does not seem a difficult decision to have to make, but apparently, the Estimates Committee says, the London County Council has been waiting for over two years for permission even to proceed with one experimental scheme. How can we run any service on that basis, with a two years' delay before a decision of that kind can be reached?
I come to the second criticism. The Estimates Committee said that the gas and electricity services wanted to have a means by which they could have alternative services in the event of there being a breakdown. Apparently, here again, there has been delay for year after year while different Departments and boards decided who was to pay. If it is considered desirable to provide alternative services and that it is necessary that certain things should be done to strengthen the gas and electricity services in the event of there being a war, surely it is obvious that one cannot delay for two years simply because it is impossible for the Government to make up their minds as to which of two or three Departments and boards should pay the money.
I said earlier that we must decide that we will treat civil defence seriously. No longer should it be a sort of extra arm that we do not bother about. In the last war, our bombers defeated the Germans in their own country. They defeated the civil defence of Germany. That was one of the most important contributions to the winning of the war. In the same way, our own civil defence succeeded, I should not say entirely, in defeating the German bombers, but, at any rate, in so minimising the effects of their actions that it was possible for us to survive. In other words, the difference was between the success of German civil defence in coping with our bombers and our civil defence in coping with the German bombers. Who can say, after that, that civil defence is not of considerable importance?
There are people who take the line that the only thing that matters nowadays is that one military arm shall defeat another military arm. What happens to the civilians in the meantime is not supposed to matter. Quite apart from the fact that civilians are carrying out occupations of the greatest importance—producing munitions, food, and all the other necessities of war—we should regard civil defence as being of vital importance from the point of view of the Armed Forces themselves.
If, for instance, we have an Army in the middle of Salisbury Plan, it can provide its own civil defence, it can be a watertight department, able to work on its own. But what would happen to the military and, indeed, naval, bases in our great towns in the event of an air raid? Would they not suffer if there was any lack in civil defence.
It is quite possible that in an early period of the war there might be a danger of the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry all being blown up. Obviously, if they were blown up by a direct hit, nothing could be done. Supposing, however, a bomb fell at some distance and, as a result, these buildings were in jeopardy, is it not vital that there should be a first-class Civil Defence Service ready equipped to deal with the situation and to preserve all three?
I will make a few concrete suggestions because the Secretary of State invited us to make some. In the first place, I agree profoundly with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) in his reference

to the necessity for a Civil Defence Ministry. In fact, with much of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's speech most of us on this side of the Committee can agree. I certainly agree with his suggestion about a Civil Defence Ministry. How can the Home Secretary hope to manage the affairs of home security in the middle of all his other work? He is not by any means low down in the scale of Ministers in the Government. We have, in fact, a very high regard for him in comparison with other Ministers, but even he is not able to manage home security along with his other multifarious duties.
From time to time we have heard complaints from our friends in Wales that they are not receiving the attention from him that they think they should have. He has Wales, television and many other matters with which to deal, and in the midst of it all there is home security. It is quite impossible for him to do it. It is just as foolish as if the Army were to be placed under the rule of the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education. There is no sense in it.
My next point is that there should be a radical overhaul of the whole system of recruiting for the service. There are three kinds of people serving in civil defence today. There are, first of all, what I would call the regulars or fulltime people. All I would say about them is that if there are not enough of them, and if the Minister is in need of more, he should put in his claim against the other Services. Today, the Armed Forces have the first claim on manpower, and only after their claims have been satisfied can the right hon. and learned Gentleman step in and say, "If there is anything left over I should like it."
I turn now to the conscripts, where the same position holds good. On this side of the Committee we are not particularly enamoured of conscription, but if there is to be conscription let civil defence share in the people who are mobilised through it. What a ludicrous position it is that we are about to consider—and I will not spend more than a moment on this—a Bill which is to direct that a certain number of airmen are to be released by the Air Ministry for temporary work. They are not to be permanently released for civil defence.

Mr. Wigg: As I understand, what has happened is that the Government have got themselves into a tremendous mess in calling up part-time National Service men, with the result that last year out of over 100,000 R.A.F. reservists only 8,000 got any training. One of the devices the Government have used is plain civil defence training in lieu of part-time R.A.F. training. Such training has little to do with civil defence. It is a scheme to save the face of the Service Ministers, particularly the Minister of Defence.

Mr. Dugdale: There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says. Civil defence is to benefit from the mistakes of the Air Force. What a position it is that the only way civil defence can get its men is if the Air Ministry makes a mistake.
I leave the conscripts and come to the third section of men, and that is the volunteers. I agree completely with the Home Secretary that we should do nothing to discourage volunteers. I hope that nothing I will say will discourage them, but we have to face up to the position. I wrote earlier in the year to my own local council to find what the exact figures were in West Bromwich, which is not likely to have an average different from other parts of the country. This is what I was told by the town clerk:
As far as we are concerned we have at the moment 384 volunteers, which is about a quarter of our peace-time establishment.
This is not war-time establishment but peace-time establishment.
Two hundred and sixty-eight are men and 160 women, and of these, 296 have been and are still continuing to be trained, but the remaining 88 can only be classed as non-attenders.
In other words, the number attending is approximately one-fifth of the peace-time establishment. He then says, in conclusion:
It should also be borne in mind that a goodly number of the 296 only put in very infrequent appearances, but they have at least had some training.
That is not a very hopeful prospect. It is a situation which causes us alarm.
I would move nearer here. Within half a mile of this House there is a small civil defence class which a friend of mine attended some months ago. He told me

that, originally, there were 32 people in that class. The teaching was efficient and he learned a great many things which it was necessary to learn in order to do civil defence work. But, gradually, that class diminished until only four people were left. What an intolerable state of affairs that is.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will come nearer and say that in the House of Commons there is no class at all.

Mr. Dugdale: How are we to have any system of volunteers working satisfactorily if people are allowed to leave a class before completing their training? We have to face up to the situation. We shall have to offer an inducement to people to encourage them to continue their training once they start. I do not know how it is to be done, but I think that some form of inducement should be given; and until it is I do not think that we shall get people to complete their courses. They must complete their training if they are to be of any use in civil defence.
I have made a few brief suggestions, but there is one thing that is essential and that thing is we have to decide once and for all that civil defence is just as important as the work of the Armed Forces. Until the Minister in charge of civil defence is able to stand up to the three Service Departments and see that he gets his share it will be hopeless for civil defence. Once it is accepted as being as important as the three Armed Services, then we can begin to build the service which every one of us desires.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. Spencer Summers: We are all indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) who, despite the fact that this debate is taking place in Opposition time, and despite the fact that reference was made to the Report of a Select Committee, set the tone for this discussion and divorced it from party politics, concentrating our attention on the necessity to try to improve the technique of civil defence. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary rather noticeably omitted any reference to that Report, and so I hope he will have regard to what was said in it more as a means of


strengthening his arm and less as making it necessary to get on to the defensive.
I shall allude to three aspects of this problem which it is just as necessary to review in the face of the hydrogen bomb as ever before. I shall not refer in detail to the various unmistakable criticisms in the Report of that all-party Committee of the House of which I was a Member. I shall pick out first a point which transcends in importance all others, namely, that we found a lack of direction at the top of the pyramid of control, without which any reforms will be completely useless.
We have heard today of the appointment of a part-time controller-designate of mobile columns. I do not believe that this is any substitute for the appointment of an independent chairman of the Central Committee, divorced from the Home Office, who can provide that leadership and sense of urgency without which all the best-laid plans of the Civil Service will not mature.
We have heard today many references to the devastating effect of the new bombs and the immense number of items of planning which apparently will have to be reconsidered. I confess I am fearful that far too long a time will elapse in the rethinking and replanning made necessary by the hydrogen bomb if what we found in the evidence before the Select Committee as to the length of time it has taken to get things done in the last three or four years is any guide to the future.
Reference has also been made to the vast amount of work which falls on the Home Secretary, and how impossible it is for my right hon. and learned Friend to do justice to this vitally important topic which increases with every scientific development that is reported. I share the views of those who have urged that there should be another Front Bench appointment to take over the political direction of this fourth arm of defence.
Again, reference has been made to the need for liaison between the world of civil defence and the military authorities. If the chairman of the committee responsible for planning, independent as I would wish him to be, were a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, that would provide a most effective bridge between the world of civil defence and the military authorities. So that far the

most important thing, I would urge, is a new sense of direction and urgency at the top to which, as yet, not sufficient attention has been paid.
My second point is the importance of recognising that in this field quality is far more important than quantity. My right hon. and learned Friend told us today that there were 328,000 in the Civil Defence Corps in March of this year compared with 275,000 in May of last year. This shows an inadequate increase in the rate of attainment of the peacetime strength. Another 50,000 in 10 months means that it will take four years to reach the minimum standard laid down, ignoring completely any wastage in the meantime. And on top of that is the undoubted fact that a large number of those in the 328,000 are incapable of dealing with any emergency because they are not properly trained.
The Government have said that they do not regard it as wise to institute any test of proficiency in a volunteer movement of this kind. I dissent completely from that view. It is not fair to those who are patriotic enough to give their time and attention in order to become proficient that they should be classified for defence purposes with others who, perhaps in a fit of enthusiasm or to get rid of the caller at the door, are not trained and yet are indistinguishable from those who put in great time and effort.
I share the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields and the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) that none of us would wish to say anything which detracted from the great efforts made by many volunteers, or anything that would damage recruiting. I cannot see, however, that it helps recruiting to conceal the fact that much of the force supposedly there on paper is not properly trained for the purpose for which it was designed. Therefore, so long as the voluntary principle is to remain—and outside the mobile column I hope it will remain—it would be much better if we faced up to that limitation by setting the target figures lower, in order to make sure that the quality of training given to those people will make up for what is lost in quantity.
Now I come to the mobile columns. I am glad that, after the experimental


period, there are to be additional columns and that great weight is to be put on this branch. I am not clear, however, how the training of four weeks during the two-year period of National Service will make a National Service man competent to take his place in a mobile column when called up subsequently. In view of the increased responsibility and the technical aspects of the training, which increases with every year that passes, I should have thought it more and more necessary to regard men in the mobile columns as highly qualified people, needing intense training and needing as much training as does the National Service man for any branch of the three Services. I cannot think it sound to rely for action upon reservists with four weeks' training coming forward to play their part in the civil defence world of the mobile columns.
Reference was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields to the increased importance that we should now attach to what the Service man is thinking about the steps taken to defend his relatives and dependants at home. The more lurid and terrible descriptions we are given of what might be the effect of hydrogen bombs, the more important is it that we should have regard to those who will have to look over their shoulders and consider what steps are being taken. In other words, there will not be an overseas fighting unit and some civil defence volunteers, part of the civilian population, looking after what the enemy is doing on the home front. It will all be part and parcel of the total war about which we ought now to have learned from experience. That being so, it makes it all the more important.
The civilian element living in the area which will have to be defended can well be voluntarily based on the local authority set-up. The mobile columns which will have to go in and overcome the immense devastation cannot be anything but Regular Service men, just as highly trained and readily available and as fit and of the same age proportionately as those in the Services. Only in that way will those who are in the Fighting Services abroad or elsewhere see that all the steps in the mobile field which could have been taken by the authorities have been taken.
I hope that the debate will serve the purpose of making it abundantly clear that, however terrible the effects of science may be, there is a duty upon us on compassionate grounds alone, if not first, not to say that it is so terrible that it is no use trying but to make certain that what can be done is done and that proper steps are taken in advance. I confess that I was concerned to learn of the immense changes that are imminent as a result of the existence of the hydrogen bomb and the apparent lack of drive and urgency in the solution of these problems. My fear is that we may find those things which have to be done being done no faster than they have been in the past.
I hope that contributions to this debate will be couched not in any party spirit but in terms of seeing how best the system can be worked, of strengthening the Home Secretary in the determination, which I am certain he possesses, to cope with the situation in the most effective way possible and of strengthening him in taking whatever decisions he thinks right.

6.52 p.m.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) has made a very constructive speech and has put forward suggestions on how to put zip and energy into civil defence. Similar suggestions on how to improve civil defence were made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) and the hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer). We have had three constructive speeches, but all three hon. Gentlemen will be suffering under a grave delusion if they believe that these proposals will have any effect upon the Government. I can assure them, and the Government know this as well as I know it, that the Chiefs of Staff have decided that civil defence shall remain a façade; the Cabinet has accepted the view of the Chiefs of Staff, and the function of the Home Secretary is to make it look as if there is something solid behind the façade.

Mr. Ian Harvey: That is a most extraordinary statement for which clearly we must have some assurance that the hon. Member has complete authority, because it reflects very much on my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. Crossman: I can assure the hon. Member that I shall prove up to the hilt the assertion that I have made.
One of the ways of deciding how much people care about things is to find how much they are willing to spend on them. In this year of grace, in this year of the hydrogen homb, the House of Commons has passed Estimates for £1,550 million for weapons of offence and £29 million for civil defence, or one-fiftieth of the sum devoted to the armoured brigades, the quarter-masters and the rest of the paraphernalia of the Army, Navy and Air Force. Therefore, one-fiftieth of the interest shown in the Army, Navy and Air Force is shown in civil defence. [Interruption.] If hon. Members opposite will follow me to the end of my speech, I shall make constructive suggestions for transferring the balance of priority from tanks and H-bombs and hundred of millions of pounds to be devoted to building aeroplanes for dropping H-bombs on Moscow while we completely neglect any serious provision, I will not say for the defence of the civil population, but even for the rescue of the fragments of the civil population which will survive.

Mr. Summers: Will the hon. Member make good in the latter part of his speech the damage to recruiting which he is making in the first part?

Mr. Crossman: I will say this, to start with, about civil defence work in Coventry. I speak with special interest. We in Coventry were victims of the first blitz on a provincial city in 1940–41. We had faithfully carried out all the precautions and organisation which we had been instructed to carry out before the war by the authorities in London. We put up the brown paper and we had our control centres organised. We had carried out every single one of the precautions which we were told would enable us to defend our city. They proved utterly hopeless in the blitz. Everything had to be improvised in that emergency. We now say to the Government that we believe that the present civil defence organisation in terms of the conditions of 1954 is as utterly unrealistic as A.R.P. was in 1939.
We have been attacked and vilified in the Press and motions and resolutions

have been passed saying that our city council was "ratting" when it made its protest and wound up its civil defence committee a few weeks ago. When we made that protest we continued our civil defence organisation. I will not worry the Committee with the figures, but we are spending on civil defence this a year a great deal more than Stoke-on-Trent is spending and more per head of the population than three-quarters of the rest of the boroughs, but we decided to make our protest against the façade.
What brought us to that decision and the final thing which provoked us to civil insurrection against the Home Secretary was that we discovered that the Home Secretary had instructed the City of Coventry to build a control centre for civil defence above ground and with land telephone lines. In 1954 we were to waste our rates and the Government's money on a control centre above ground and with telephone lines, when in 1940–41 a similar control centre was knocked out within half an hour of the beginning of a raid by a 400–1b. bomb. Now, with the hydrogen bomb in existence, we are told to waste good money in deceiving—whom? The civil defence workers? Are they deceived? They know. We shall not get volunteer civil defence workers in this country by pretending that a control centre above ground with telephone lines is any good at all in 1954.
I assert to the Home Secretary that the civil defence preparations today are adequate to deal with the equivalent of the Coventry blitz of 1940–41 but totally inadequate to deal even with the equivalent of the R.A:F. raids on Hamburg in 1943. The Home Secretary has not learned what the German civil defence had to learn in the face of the enormous T.N.T. raids on Germany. It was part of my job during the war to read a secret report which the German authorities made after the Hamburg raids. Hamburg was totally demoralised at one time and if the raids had gone on without A.R.P. German city after German city would have had panicked and trekked. After one of the phosphorous raids the Germans issued an instruction that it was illegal for a citizen to remain outside a shelter after the siren had sounded and it was illegal to stay inside the shelter after the all-clear siren had gone. Everybody was forced to take protection


during the raid and afterwards was forced out to take part in the civil defence of the city. That is how they beat the R.A.F. blitz.
I do not know whether present conditions do not change the lesson of the T.N.T. raids of 1943. All I know is that in Coventry we are instructed to spend money to get people to volunteer and to organise a civil defence that would have been ineffective even against such raids as those of the R.A.F. in 1943. We are told by the Home Secretary, "I am having to wait a bit for the plans for dealing with the H-bomb"; but there have been the A-bomb, the 10,000-lb. bomb and the rocket to deal with. After all that, he spends £29 million in order to present a façade.
Will the Home Secretary explain to us in Coventry why he instructed us to spend money on building a control centre above ground with telephone lines, sent his officials to Coventry—after we had protested—to make political speeches against us in Coventry, and have H-bomb exercises in our city which presupposed that there had been an H-bomb near miss of Birmingham and yet our Coventry civil defence was still in being? I say that type of exercise does not stimulate recruiting, because everyone knows it is sheer nonsense. Everyone knows, however, that the amount which is being spent cannot do anything serious and that the Government are not prepared to face the British people with the realities.
I have noticed a certain politeness in smoothing over the realities. We are told there is a terrible risk. But we put ourselves deliberately into that risk. What nation agreed to have atom-bombers stationed near Oxford? What nation agreed to have American fighters carrying torpedoes with atomic heads in Norfolk? What nation agreed that, in the event of Russian aggression with conventional weapons, H-bombers would be used? What nation has committed itself to a strategy for using Hand A-bombs first before the other side uses them and so committing national suicide by provoking reprisals?
I can understand the Americans doing that, but not that this island of 50 million people should accept as a strategy of self-defence that atom- or H-bombers should

fly from this country and destroy Moscow and that we should spend £29 million to provide against the consequences of that policy on our own civilian population. Do not tell me that civil defence workers will be very enthusiastic until they get an answer to the question why that policy was accepted, The Government may say, "We do not really believe that; it is all just bluff. The Russians will be nice and kind and will not really do it." Here I agree with the Prime Minister who, time after time, has pointed out the grave risk which this country put itself in by accepting the responsibility of having A-bombers here and so putting us deliberately into the most precarious position in the world.
Militarily we are an atomic aircraft carrier for someone else, and the civilian people of this country are as much in danger as soldiers, sailors and airmen on an aircraft carrier under attack. On this island we are all shut up in an aircraft carrier. And yet we are spending £1,500 million on the Army, Navy and Air Force and only £29 million—one-fiftieth—on civil defence. As the Select Committee Report overwhelmingly proved, we are not even spending that, and the officials are not really believing in it. Do not let us blame the officials, for it is the Home Secretary who is responsible for giving them a lead. He cannot give them a lead. Why? It is because his Service colleagues in the Cabinet will not release the proportion of their Estimates necessary to make civil defence a genuine reality.
No one pretends that we can add to the bill of £1,500 million for the Army, Navy and Air Force another £300 million or £400 million for civil defence. Everyone knows that we are over the top limit on the defence budget, and, therefore, it is the interest of the three Service chiefs to ensure that civil defence is starved. The Army say, "We want this," the Navy say, "We want that," and the Air Force say, "We want that." They have the Home Secretary there to pretend that civil defence is being provided for on £29 million.
A strange thing about Conservative Governments is that they have the great power of selecting men who are so honest and personally attractive that their personal honesty can be used to conceal the dishonesty of the policy they represent.


If any other Cabinet Minister had made the speech the Home Secretary made today, with that list of dreary platitudes and evasions, he would not have got through it. It is only because we like him so much that he got away with it.
I was not in the House when his predecessor in the art of façade, then Sir Thomas Inskip and later Lord Caldecote, was Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence under the Chamberlain Government. He was a past-master of the art which the Home Secretary is practising. It is the art which suggests that everything is all right, plans are being provided and it will come all right on the day; but we know now that nothing was being done in the 1930s and we know that that nothing is being done for civil defence now. The Home Secretary may even persuade himself—although I doubt whether he can do so, because he is an intelligent man—that the brief he was reading was an honest one. We know it is a deliberate attempt to throw sand in everyone's eyes and it is not succeeding with civil defence workers.
Coming back to Coventry—we in Coventry are concerned about civil defence. It is true that we had only 550 killed last time. That was early in the war to defend freedom, liberty and decency, and the casualties from the R.A.F. raids in Hamburg were 50,000 and in Tokio from the American raids, 300,000. The system and science of human destruction developed rapidly after the Coventry Blitz. But even in 1940 there was no real civil defence. We did not even have enough coffins in which to bury the killed. We would like to know what provision is now being made for the number of coffins required next time. Let me assure the Home Secretary that that is important.
These are important questions; they are real issues which face human beings in the modern age of total war. There would be 50,000 casualties in such a raid. Will there be a blood bank available for the living and coffins for the dead? On every one of the detailed issues on which the delegation waited on the Home Secretary last week he has replied saying, "The Committee will not expect me—" or "It is being given careful scrutiny" or "Further examination is being made."
Take the question of evacuation. The Home Secretary knows that it is no good talking about our being a brave people. I will tell him something. When the next war starts and it is known that an atom or hydrogen bomb will be dropped on this country—and that will be known on the first day that one is dropped on Moscow—there will be a mass trek out of the industrial areas. Either that will be organised by the Government or it will be unorganised. From Coventry 100,000 people went away from the city on the night of the great raid and lay in the fields outside. What will happen when people know that extermination is coming to London within the next 24 hours? The Home Secretary said, "You cannot expect us to have a plan ready." But we already have the atom bombs ready. All the weapons of the blitz are there and can go at any moment to Moscow, but he says there is no plan for civil defence. All the offensive plans are ready, but the defensive plans are not. Is that not a fact? The right hon. and learned Gentleman does not deny it.
Take another question—industrial dispersal. I am informed that the City of Coventry is now producing two-thirds in value of the total British rearmament programme. It is making most of the jets. In 1938 we sent a delegation to the Government and said, "You have planned to put most of the key arms factories in Coventry. Cannot you disperse them?" The Government said, "It is really impossible." Now we have exactly the same situation all over again—two-thirds in value of Britain's total rearmament programme produced in one city of 250,000 people which is going to be destroyed on the first day of the next war. We have a certain interest in the next war in Coventry. We ask, "What are you going to do about it? What dispersal of the rearmament programme are you contemplating before the war, and what dispersal or rehabilitation of the industry which survives after the war starts are you contemplating?"
We have no answer whatever because there is no plan. The Government have not the ghost of a notion what they would do to disperse industry or evacuate the population in the event of war. They know exactly what they would do to destroy the Russian civilian population, but they have not a vestige of a plan for defending our own civilian population or


for rescuing it from the extermination which will be precipitated on it by our own strategy. That is why civil defence workers are not all that enthusiastic today. They want to be told one or two answers to their problems.
I turn to one or two of the other detailed problems which we put privately to the Home Secretary, and which I should like to put to him again. It strikes me that one of the most important problems is concerned with food. We have a Tory Government which is going to wind up the Ministry of Food. Yet if we are facing total war the organisation of food supplies is absolutely vital, because food is the biggest restorer of morale.
We heard what the Home Secretary said on the subject. He said that we are to have emergency food services quite separate from the mobile columns, hospitals, etc. Each Government Department is to send its mobile army to an afflicted area; there will be five, six or seven rushing in—all to be "co-ordinated." It did not work last time when our city was hit. A virtual dictatorship had to be established in Coventry between the military and civilian authorities. This time there will not be a city but a whole area devastated.
Last time the need was to co-ordinate the effort in a city to ensure that all the fire engines did not go to one bomb incident A so that there were none left to go to incidents B to Z. This time there will be one bomb which will spread devastation so far as to go far beyond the boundaries of a little local authority. Yet here we have the Home Secretary tenaciously holding the view that the organisation of civil defence rescue work should be based on the local authority.
Local authority organisation is pretty bad now and needs reorganisation in terms of peace. But think in terms of what will be needed, in war, for the rescue of what is left of our population by 101 bickering local authorities. Yet the Home Secretary is asking each of them to organise and recruit their own civil defence services, to be assisted by endless rival Government Departments each coming in with its private army. What civil defence worker is likely to feel enthusiastic at such a ludicrous plan?
We in Coventry have studied this problem. In our view, static civil defence, based on the local authority, is as antiquated in 1954 as it would be to use the Elizabethan method for calling up soldiers locally through the justices of the peace. Civil defence must now be a national problem or nothing at all. It must be planned nationally and administered regionally.
We have abolished the regional commissioners. We are even worse off than we were in 1940. We have denationalised the Fire Service. Where is the unit of administration which will plan, through hundreds of local authorities, how to come to the assistance of city A and move hundreds of thousands of people elsewhere? Is it not obvious that here we need national planning and a regional administration of military and civil defence, working together on a regional basis, such as we set up in the last war? We should not, without the regional commissioners' offices, have been able to resist even the blitz in 1941. How are we going to do this planning seriously if we do not restore the regional commissioners' offices in peace-time.

Sir William Darling: Commissars.

Mr. Crossman: Here is one of the problems. If we face the problems of total war and try to defend ourselves in total war we end up, of course, by cutting away the liberties of the citizen.
There are other ways of dealing with this problem, but I am only saying that, given the Government's foreign policy and strategy, and as they are committing this country to be certainly attacked in the first week of the next war, we must consider what methods we have with which to defend the population. I make my first principle that there must be national planning and regional organisation.
The second principle is that the mobile columns must be military columns. I agree with my right hon. Friend that it would be a great mistake to hand all civil defence over to the military but I think that mobile defence must be military. Here is a vital solution which will indicate how far the Government really care about civil defence. I say that at least a third of our National Service men should be used during their period


of service for the job of forming permanent peace-time mobile columns. If the Government say "What a waste of time; we cannot waste them on mobile columns, they have a more important job to do than that," that shows how low the Government rate civil defence compared with the Fighting Services. It is all very well to make speeches for civil defence but not to vote the money. If we are agreed about the importance of civil defence, we must be prepared to allocate a number of conscripts, not for a fortnight of part time service, but in their period of call-up, so that we know that we have the columns activated in peace-time.
If someone says that that is a waste of a conscript's time, my reply is that I prefer them to waste their time that way rather than in sitting on their backsides in Suez, or in being involved in the situation in Kenya, which we are told is defending democracy, or in sitting in Malaya, or, now, even in defending Dr. Adenaeur. There are a good many occupations I know of for our National Service men, but there is only one I know to be wholly justifiable and good—that is for them to be organised in mobile columns which can come to the aid of a stricken city if destruction should come.
If the Home Secretary says that we will have these people trained and then call them up after the war has started, I reply that our strategy lays it down that the first act of the next war should be an H-bomb on Moscow. How do I know? From the Defence White Paper. The Conservative Defence White Paper devotes four pages to saying that the next war will start with an exchange of thermonuclear weapons, and then there will be the "broken-backed" stage. The Government have committed themselves and said that our strategy is based on the assumption that Britain will be hit by thermo-nuclear weapons in the first stage of the next war.
What does the White Paper say about civil defence? At the end it says that no further increase is contemplated in the cost of civil defence! We are committing ourselves to H-bombs and bombers to the extent of £200 million a year, but not a penny more is to be added to the £29 million for rescuing our people from the results of the Government's strategy.
What are the facts with which the Home Secretary did not deal today? I

revert to food. I was saying that food organisation was vital. I was talking the other day to one of our most distinguished ex-air marshals, whose opinion I would trust. He said, "You know, Crossman, Coventry is perfectly right. This static civil defence is suicide. If you seriously want civil defence in this country, your first step is to assure the food supplies and to see that you have alternative ports after Liverpool and Glasgow have been wiped out on the first day. Would it not be wonderful to have four or five Mulberry harbours built in peacetime to establish provisional temporary ports in Ireland, or Wales, in order to get in the food—because people cannot live without food?"
That air marshal was thinking seriously. But it would cost £500 million to have four or five Mulberries, and we cannot afford it. We are told time after time about civil defence that if we are to do the job properly it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds. Of course it will. To build Mulberries, to organise a shelter policy—whatever that may be—and to disperse industry would cost hundreds of millions of pounds. I say to the Home Secretary that so long as he permits himself to defend the Government's White Paper on defence, he has an obligation to provide that money for the defence of the civil population.
I must say frankly that the more I face this problem of civil defence the more I realise that to take it seriously is, in a way, to demand the impossible of this island of ours, and the more I realise that it is in the realms of foreign policy that our efforts should be made. Yet I agree that it is quite possible that we shall not get agreement between America and Russia and we may have to make provision for Fl-bomb attack. I should be prepared to vote that one-third of the total Defence Estimates should be spent on civil defence and that one-third of our conscripts should go into mobile columns. But I will also say that that is not a satisfactory way of dealing with the problem, and since the Home Secretary addressed me on foreign affairs, I will make one practical suggestion to him.
Some of us have suggested that the N.A.T.O. Powers should make a solemn declaration that they would not use thermo-nuclear weapons unless someone


else used them first. I know why that proposal is being opposed. It is because since 1945 the Americans have relied on their technological advance in thermo-nuclear weapons to counterbalance the Russian preponderance in manpower and conventional weapons. They have calculated that if we have atomic weapons and threaten to use them, we can deter the Russians. No deterrent is effective unless you are prepared to use it, and accordingly America and Britain have become committed to using these weapons first.
I say in all solemnity to the Home Secretary: Why on earth should not we say what we all know—that this country will not tolerate the use of the H-bomb against anybody unless it has been used by them first? If we do not know that, the crime of not providing civil defence is quite immoral. If anyone tells me that they are prepared to use the H-bomb against Russia in an initial attack without providing civil defence, I say that they are behaving like a general who equips his soldiers with machine guns which are weapons of destruction and then says, "I cannot afford to equip you with anything to protect you against the use of these weapons." Anyone who treated his soldiers in that way would be called a murderer—if he said, "We will give you weapons of destruction, but we cannot afford to protect you against these weapons if they are used by the other side."
We have never treated our soldiers like that, but we have said that to our civilians for eight years. I am not making party political propaganda out of this. It was also said by the Labour Government. But we must remember that since the Labour Government went out of office things have become much worse. The hydrogen bomb has been invented. Thermo-nuclear weapons exist on both sides which make it certain that if Anglo-American strategy is implemented the shock will fall on this country first.
I say to the Home Secretary—and here I think I speak also for the Coventry City Council—that my form of civil defence would be either a declaration that Britain would not manufacture H-bombers or bombs at all; or a declaration that Britain pledges herself not to use these weapons unless they are used against us, and demands a similar pledge from

America. It America refuses to give such a pledge, we should say with regret, "Gentlemen, Dr. Adenauer may permit American H-bombers and H-bombs, and provide airfields in Germany, but we do not feel happy that airfields in this country are occupied by a Power not prepared to pledge itself against using the H-bomb first. if you cannot give us that pledge, go home, or go to Germany, or Spain, or Formosa, or any other satellite country. But this country is one which is not prepared to expose itself to the crime of condoning a decision to use the H-bomb first."
The Home Secretary should realise that in military terms it is insanity for this country to have no plans whatsoever for the evacuation of our population or the dispersal of our industries or for the creation of new ports, and yet to have an H-bomb strategy. Morale does not depend only on inner private personal courage. It depends also on whether there is a chance of survival; and a Government not prepared for the eventualities for which it is responsible, and which puts its citizens in a hopeless situation, must expect those citizens to say, "No." It must expect the voluntary trek if it does not organise an evacuation; it must expect nerves to be shattered in a city such as Coventry if it has to face the next war without any shelters.
I apologise for keeping the House so long, but I felt that it was time to bring a sense of reality to this debate. I regret that no vote is being taken tonight. I thought it very significant that only a handful of hon. Members found it worth while to stay and listen in the Chamber this afternoon when this subject was being discussed. But they reflect public opinion. However, public opinion has been deliberately misled by the Government. The Government have told the public, "Look, you must be loyal to the civil defence preparations and you can be assured that everything possible is being done." The Government have lied to the public. It is a lie that everything possible is being done. It is a lie even that the Government intend to do everything possible, for the Chiefs of Staff will not permit it.
If I am told that the Home Secretary knows that is the situation; that he will not tolerate it; that he is going to fight the three Service chiefs and get £400 million for civil defence from the Service


Estimates, I will congratulate him as a great man. But he was not given his job in order to do that. With his charm and niceness, he was given the job in order to deceive us, in order that his honesty should impress us and make us connive at permitting this façade—a position which my city council protests against to the full.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Henry Brooke: Those of us who—unlike some hon. Members who have most loudly applauded the speech of the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman)—have listened to this debate from the beginning must be impressed by the radical difference in the approach of that hon. Member and that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who spoke from his own Front Bench. The difference is that the right hon. Member for South Shields has had to carry the responsibilities of the Home Office and of civil defence, and knows that most of the vicious and powerful attack which the hon. Member for Coventry, East has just delivered could equally have been delivered against the Labour Government which he supported.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East had the opportunity to make a valuable, as well as a powerful, contribution to this debate. In my judgment, he has preferred to make a mischievous one. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] He has suggested to this Committee and to the country that the problem of civil defence can be effectively solved by withdrawing one-third of the National Service men now in the Armed Forces, surrendering to Communism and giving way to Mau Mau. That is what his practical proposals amounted to.
Until now I have always thought that in a debate on civil defence we should all be seeking ways to sustain civilian morale. What the hon. Member has said in this debate will certainly have shaken the morale both of civil defence volunteers and of those who have hitherto believed that civil defence work was important. He will have done that, and I greatly doubt whether he will have given service to his own constituents in Coventry or to anyone else by suggesting that there is an easy way out—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—an easy way out by the submission that it would be simple to

change Britain's foreign policy and thereby make civil defence on the requisite scale unnecessary.
I want to return to the assumption, which, I think, we must all make, that an effective civil defence force is essential and that we have to do the job in the light of necessary commitments simultaneously in other directions. The right hon. Member for South Shields may remember that I came to him with an all-party deputation from the London County Council three years ago to voice anxiety at the slow progress of civil defence in London. My remarks now will apply to both Governments we have had since the passing of the 1948 Act. I say that I am still grievously concerned.
I took part in a debate here—I believe it was the last full length civil defence debate we had—in July, 1952. I then particularly asked the Home Secretary to give civil defence more of his personal attention. I should like here publicly to thank him for responding so generously to that request, for having gone up and down the country making speeches where he believed it would be helpful, and showing that whatever were the limitations on what we could do, he himself was wholeheartedly behind the effort.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I also was present at that debate. Did not the hon. Member get the Home Secretary at that time to declare a policy on air raid shelters; and what is the result?

Mr. Brooke: If the hon. Member will wait I was going to deal with that subject later in my remarks.
Surely we are all accepting that since that debate the problem of civil defence has been rendered far more difficult by the advent of the hydrogen bomb. Some of us on both sides of the Committee have been expressing the view that the date when we shall have a practical solution of all these intractable problems sometimes seems further off than ever, despite the fact that two years have passed. All the same, we shall not find solutions by ignoring essential facts in the situation with which we have to cope.
On one matter we are all agreed. It is that there is need for the mobile columns to be built up, and to be made into really workmanlike battleworthy units. I felt myself glowing with welcome


when the Home Secretary said that he was planning to appoint a commander-in-chief designate of the mobile forces. I confess that the glow faded when I learned that it was to be only a part-time appointment. Even so, there was no need for the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) to twist that and to suggest that it was a spare-time appointment. When the right hon. Gentleman himself takes on a spare-time job none of us will say that he is doing it as a spare-time extra.

Mr. Dugdale: I do not wish to interrupt, but what is the difference between the two? It seems to me that he is only using that part of his time which he can spare.

Mr. Brooke: When I take on a part-time job I take it on in a different spirit.
The Home Secretary has told the House that under his proposals we shall, by 1960, have 90,000 men who will have had four weeks' training in mobile column work. In the original announcement made to the House by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, it was said that there would be 30,000 men trained each year. That conveyed to many people outside that 30,000 additional men would be trained every year. The Home Secretary's remarks today have made it clear that it will be 15,000, in addition to the 15,000 who have already had a fortnight's training the previous year.
I wish to support what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) has said to the effect that four weeks' training for mobile column participation will be far too short unless these men have had well planned training in the kind of action which it will be essential to them to understand and to be practised in before the four weeks' training. Otherwise, it seems to me that in relation to the tremendous responsibilities a short period of four weeks will be ludicrous.
The White Paper on Defence—as the hon. Member for Coventry, East, who has already left the Committee, mentioned—indicated the Government's view that a war would start with a period of intense atomic attacks followed by a longer period of "broken-backed" warfare. This theory means that the peak load on

the mobile columns will fall at the very outbreak of war. This is one of the first problems that we look to the new commander-in-chief designate to solve—how he, with the resources which he is given, will be able to build up in peace-time not only a sufficient but a sufficiently-trained force to carry the main responsibilities of rescue and fire-fighting in different parts of the country the moment war is upon us. Clearly, the announcement of a part-time commander-in-chief does not meet the request of the Mabane Committee, repeated in its Second Report. The Mabane Committee said:
…an immediate step towards this objective would be the introduction of an individual of the highest competence and national reputation, who, by the special nature of his office, would be capable of inspiring public confidence, and would provide the leadership which is so essential to recruitment and training.
If this man is properly selected, and is given a full-time appointment, then he can perform that service, but if it is to be only a part-time appointment then I must fear that the hobgoblin that has bedevilled so many of our civil defence plans in the past has entered into this appointment also.
For my own part, I do not agree with what the Select Committee said on the relatively lesser importance which they thought should be attached to the local authority Civil Defence Services. The Select Committee, in my judgment, did harm to recruiting and did less than justice not only to the plans but to the realised results of what the local authorities were doing.

Mr. James MacColl: Would the hon. Gentleman tell us which paragraph in the Report he is criticising?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman is sitting next to the chairman of the Sub-Committee, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), which produced the Report. I think he will be able to direct the hon. Gentleman's attention to it.

Mr. MacColl: On a point of order.
Surely if an hon. Member purports to paraphrase a very large Report and says that something is in it of which the chairman and certainly I, as a member of that Sub-Committee, have no recollection, is it reasonable that the hon. Member should ride off without giving us the paragraph?

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson): The question whether it is reasonable or not may arise, but it is hardly a point of order.

Mr. Brooke: I grant to the hon. Member that I was paraphrasing, but in paragraph (viii) of the summary of recommendations, the Select Committee said:
Urgent consideration should be given to the balance of expenditure between the Civil Defence Services and mobile columns, because the Civil Defence Corps would appear to be extravagant and inefficient …
I hope that the Chairman of the Sub-Committee will have an opportunity of taking part in this debate later. I will certainly correct any wrong impression that I may have created in the light of anything that he says, for I am ready to agree with the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) if he says that six years after the Civil Defence Act was passed there is still a certain unreality about civil defence at the local level.
He knows London as I do. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) spoke of shelters. There are up to the present virtually no shelters in London, the chief target city of the country. There are up to the present virtually no emergency water supplies yet ready, and most of us who had anything to do with civil defence in the last war discovered before the end of it that the principal task was to prevent the whole place being burned down.
I agree with the line which the Select Committee took in suggesting that there had been failure in working out the priorities and in planning a proper programme of capital works with approved completion dates in the various sections. That, to my mind, was the most valuable criticism contained in the Select Committee's Report. It is useless to call civil defence the fourth arm of defence unless it is treated as the Armed Forces are treated in respect of capital equipment.
Nobody admires more than I do the sacrifice and keenness of thousands of volunteers who are giving up their spare time to civil defence training. They are an example to all of us. But when global figures are quoted for recruitment throughout the country, those figures cover terrifying blanks. Anyone who has looked up the figures for the different parts of London will see that whereas certain boroughs have come

forward splendidly in the matter of recruitment, there are other boroughs where the results are most disappointing, and some of those include what we should regard as target parts of the city, judging by the last war.
I ask myself what I would do if I were given the job of recruiting more volunteers to civil defence in a large city which might be a target in the next war. I should hate to have the job. But my first instinct would be to see whether I could get fully on to my side all those who seemed to be the leaders of public opinion, those people who are looked up to for their positions or their personalities—the mayors and lord mayors, the principal employers and the trade union leaders of the neighbourhood, those women who had taken the foremost part in women's voluntary services and the like—and I should make sure that they were all backing the drive for civil defence volunteers with their whole strength.
If I were to do that, I would have to recognise that such people would ask businesslike questions. They would be bound to ask by what date some reasonable shelter provision for the city might be completed. They would be bound to ask, if they had experience of the damage caused by fire in the last war, what progress was being made with fire-fighting plans and emergency water supplies, and by what date, after a declaration of war, the city would reach a reasonable state of readiness in those respects. Frankly, they would not be much comforted to be told that the warning system was better than ever and that there was a fully adequate supply of sirens ready to fit.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Who is shaking morale now?

Mr. Mikardo: Yes, who is attacking morale now?

Mr. Brooke: I agree with hon. Members on the Select Committee, now sitting on both sides of this Committee, who have said that fundamentally there has not been sufficient attention paid to priorities. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary said in his statement on the Select Committee Report:
The policy of Her Majesty's Government has been to prepare a carefully considered


programme of priorities and to select—generally speaking—those measures which are best calculated to assist the military effort without making demands upon our resources to an extent which would be inconsistent with the maintenance of a peace-time economy. If it had been decided that civil defence should develop pari passu with the Armed Forces, not only would the planned expenditure have been multiplied several fold, but the tempo of its progress would have been sharply quickened."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th January, 1954; Vol. 522, c. 273.]
If I may analyse that, it seems to me to say that those parts of civil defence preparations which can go forward without interfering with the needs of the Armed Forces will go forward, even though they may not be the most urgent from the civil defence point of view. That is precisely what has happened. That is precisely what is causing many people now in civil defence to ask whether successive Governments have meant business.

Mr. Mikardo: Who is attacking morale now?

Mr. Brooke: Many of these people whom I should like to approach in order to get them to lead in the drive for civil defence volunteers have, unfortunately, already gained the impression that successive Cabinets have decided that civil defence is to rank as a sort of shepherd's pie, that it can have the bits and oddments which are left over unused from everything else, from all the demands of all the other Departments, and that the Home Secretary and his advisers must make out of those oddments the best dish they can. That is my view, and I must state it strongly, because I believe that such great issues are at stake for the future safety of the civilian population.
If my reading of the situation at Cabinet level is correct, I can well understand those who are in charge of the administrative direction of civil defence below that level feeling that they will be obeying Cabinet wishes best if they proceed somewhat as one does in a slow bicycle race, keeping going, but not risking the loss of anything by going too fast. I am not criticising any individuals. I believe that this atmosphere and tempo, which I regard as entirely wrong, follows from Cabinet decisions which have been taken by successive Governments.
Except for one speech, the Commmittee has managed to maintain the tradition of many years of having what I might call a bi-partisan civil defence policy, at any late on the back benches. Back bench Members on both sides of the House cannot possibly have the inner knowledge which would enable them to say exactly what shape and form civil defence, as the fourth arm of defence, should take at any moment. But what we can do is to join together and adjure the Cabinet to agree that the dangers for the country of slow motion civil defence preparations are too great to be any longer borne.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. Austen Albu: The hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) has praised the tradition of the House in dealing with civil defence in a back-bench, bipartisan manner. That has certainly been the case on this occasion. Not a single speech has been made by a Member on either side of the Committee in defence of the Home Secretary or the administration of civil defence. The hon. Member started by attacking my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) but, although he did not use the more excitable language and methods of my hon. Friend, in the last third of his speech the hon. Member said almost exactly word for word what was said by my hon. Friend.
The hon. Member praised the Home Secretary for going up and down the country and making speeches, but speeches do not make civil defence. The hon. Member recognised that when he referred to the necessity for appealing to leaders of public opinion to carry out recruitment work. He said that they could not do that if they were intelligent men and asked intelligent questions, because they would find that there was nothing on which to base the recruitment of volunteers.
It will be no secret to hon. Members that I am not always in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East, and I think he greatly exaggerated his case on this occasion, but one cannot discuss this matter without making some estimate of the possible strategy of a possible enemy. The statement by the Government in the Defence White Paper has already been quoted. They anticipate that a war would start with intense atomic attacks, leading in a short time to what


they call "broken backed" warfare. I do not think it is necessary to assume, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East did, that these atomic or hydrogen bomb attacks would be started by this country in the first place.
Even since the publication of the White Paper the situation as we can envisage it has become worse, because we now know of the effects of the hydrogen bomb, against which defence would seem to be almost impossible unless we spend such a vast amount of money on civil defence as appears to have been done in Sweden, where the whole population can go underground. I would say that the cost to this country would be quite impossible. Very much greater emphasis should be placed on the complete evacuation of cities for a short time except for workers in essential services, including that of civil defence, who could be housed in deep shelters, a reasonable number of which might be provided for them alone.
I consider it possible that the hydrogen or atomic bomb might not be used at all, at any rate in the first few weeks of the war. One cannot be certain about that, but if evacuation were carried out war production would not be affected for the first week or two, and it might happen that because these weapons are now possessed by both sides neither side would use them. The same situation might arise as arose in the last war, when poison gas was not used. We must, however, expect very concentrated attacks by high explosive bombs, and no doubt atomic bombs; although the fact that both sides possess the hydrogen bomb might lead to the end of bombing of civilians altogether, because of the fear of reprisals. This is because—as Captain Liddell Hart has suggested, and as I think is not absolutely impossible, although hon. Members may think it is completely ludicrous—anyone seeing an enemy aeroplane approaching will assume that it contains a hydrogen bomb and will press the button to send one back in the opposite direction, and therefore bombing might not be used at all. However, we must prepare for the use of the atomic bomb, and certainly the high explosive bomb.
Civil defence has two clear and quite separate duties, which are frequently confused, and have been confused in this debate First, it has to deal with persons

evacuated from cities either before or after an attack, and provide all the necessary services, including casualty and hospital services. Secondly, it has to operate rescue, life-saving and property protection forces in face of a large-scale attack, either while the attack is going on or immediately afterwards.
I shall deal with the second duty first, because it has created by far the more controversy. The Report of the Select Committee on Estimates has been much attacked. Mention has been made in today's debate of its supposed effect upon the morale of the Civil Defence Services. I consider that this criticism of the Report is quite unjustified, and one or two hon. Members have already spoken to that effect. The Home Secretary, who made a most appalling and complacent reply to the Select Committee, received no support for that reply. In leading articles in "The Times" he was twice attacked with a critical severity which I cannot ever remember, having been used before against a Cabinet Minister. No one came to his rescue in the correspondence columns of that newspaper, although one would have thought that if anybody was available to come to his rescue it would have been through "The Times."
I received several letters in support of the Select Committee's findings, and none in antagonism. I should like to quote one letter which came from a civil defence officer in a city in the Midlands. It said:
The encouragement which your Report has given civil defence officers comes from the fact that an unbiased investigation has been made which has ventilated many shortcomings in the operational organisation of the Civil Defence Corps. These shortcomings were not unknown to those of us who were full-time professional officers in the service.
We were criticised for saying that the Civil Defence Corps was a façade. It was assumed that this was an attack upon civil defence volunteers or local authorities who were trying to carry out the instructions of successive Governments, but it was nothing of the sort. In fact, the Select Committee's Report was itself based upon the evidence of local authority representatives and volunteers.
Anyone who says that the present Civil Defence Corps is a success, or is even beginning to approach being a success, is simply sticking his head into


the sand. It is no good pretending something is happening when it is quite evident that it is not, and nothing can do more to dissipate morale than to go on pretending that the figures of membership of the Civil Defence Corps are of some credit to its recruitment when everybody knows, first, that the figures are much too low, and, second, that only a proportion of those who remain in the Corps ever do any work. I very much regret that immediately before the Select Committee's Report came out and particularly afterwards the Home Secretary was led to make utterly misleading speeches throughout the country. I regret that he does not seem to have stopped doing so, for he made one before coming to this debate.
What are the facts about the Civil Defence Corps? The facts are, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman told us, that the strength of the corps today is 328,000 as compared with just over 300,000 at 31st December. That is approximately 60 per cent. of its peacetime establishment. The first thing one has to realise about those approximately 300,000 volunteers is that at no time during the last two years has the number of those who have completed their basic training exceeded 30 per cent. As for the section training, the final training for the work in the particular section of the corps to which a volunteer will be attached, the latest figures show that approximately 9 per cent. have completed their section training, which is approximately 5 per cent.—or less than that—of the peacetime establishment, However, the peacetime establishment itself is only one-third of the wartime establishment, so that, after five years of the Civil Defence Corps we have under 2 per cent. of the volunteers, of the membership, trained in the services which they will be required to operate.
The situation is really very much worse than that because in the large cities, as the Home Secretary told me in reply to a Question early in the year, at 31st December last only 15 per cent. of the peacetime establishment of the Corps had completed their basic training, and of those who had the proportion is far higher in the welfare services than in the essential and, perhaps, more difficult rescue sec

tions. In many of the major cities not a single person had at that time, that is to say, at the end of the year, completed his section training in the Corps. It is generally agreed, as was said in evidence, that less than two-thirds of those recruited ever turn up for training at all, and of those who do only one in six remains a keen member of the Corps. For none of them is any test of proficiency required as a condition of continued membership of the Corps.
Perhaps this is not surprising in view of the apparently inadequate nature of the training. It was stated in evidence to the Committee that training was boring, dull and inadequate, and the Home Secretary has today at last admitted that this was the case, because he said that the training schedules were being reorganised. I would quote another of the letters I have received. It is from a volunteer in the Corps in a South London area, and he says:
I and many others have been in the Corps for three years and nine months. I have been put through basic training twice, because there was nothing else to offer in our second year. We started our section training in the third year but could not complete it for lack of material, message forms, tallies and the necessary gear for detecting radio-active rays. Since last July our section (Headquarters) has not been called to any lectures for lack of instructors. One has died, the other has left the district. It is therefore a fact that after three and three-quarter years of service it has not been possible for me to become an efficient member of the headquarters staff. It would seem almost impossible that in any Service it should prove impossible to offer its members any sort of training for nine solid months.
Today I had come to see me the chairman of the civil defence committee of one of the inner London boroughs, a borough which has a very active civil defence committee. He himself is a very keen man indeed. He drew attention to the extraordinary difficulty of maintaining interest without any equipment. He particularly referred to the necessity for the use of walkie-talkies. That civil defence committee was very anxious to use walkie-talkies in a practice, and asked the Home Office to supply some. The Home Office replied, "No. Use dummies." We cannot go on using dummy respirators, dummy walkie-talkies, dummy radiac equipment, dummy shelters. We cannot maintain morale and interest without proper gear. We cannot train soldiers if they are never supplied with anything but dummy wooden rifles.

Mr. Wigg: Of course, we can. In the First World War, as the Prime Minister knows, that is precisely what happened, and, of course, the casualties we had were one of the consequences.

Mr. Albu: Exactly what I should have expected. I do not think that any of the figures I have quoted or any of the other facts I have quoted have ever been denied, but the only answer that seems to have been made to those who have made those criticisms about the low levels of recruitment and training in the large industrial centres is that large numbers will be required in rural areas to receive evacuees. The Home Secretary said today that we shall have to increase the strength of the Civil Defence Services in what I took to be localities outside the large towns because of the new appreciation of the effects of the hydrogen bomb.
This is where a fundamental error in the organisation of our civil defence arrangements occurs at the present time. I do not think it has been brought out in the debate so far. Certainly large numbers will be required to train for the welfare and casualty services—for billeting, housing, emergency hospital, ambulance, food supply and such services. Those are the services that will have to care for those who have been wounded, bombed out, evacuated. There will be a great need for volunteers in addition to those required for the more permanent services, such as for the mobile food canteens, and so on. However, there seems to me to be no advantage in pretending that those services are part of the Civil Defence Corps, which will have an operational duty during and immediately after an attack.
My reply to the hon. Member for Hampstead and others who have made the criticism that the Select Committee on Estimates wanted to remove duties from the local authorities is that the services I have been mentioning are best organised entirely as local authority services in co-operation with regional hospital boards and the various voluntary bodies. In fact this is dealt with in paragraph 64 of the Report of the Select Committee on Estimates which says:
The question really is whether to continue the façade of a Civil Defence Corps on a national scale or whether the duties which it was set up to perform would not be carried out more economically if they were to revert to being purely local authority functions.

I concede there is a division in these functions and that the welfare functions and so on are local authority functions. On the other hand the rescue and lifesaving services must be organised in a different way. It is quite clear that they will have to be organised to deal with mass attacks. They must therefore be large units or be capable of being marshalled into large units and to move to the areas where they are most needed. If we have an atomic bomb attack, the area of destruction will be much too great to be dealt with by local forces, who would immediately be overwhelmed.
These operational forces—rescue, lifesaving and property-saving forces—cannot be an extension of the duties of local government. That would be an incredible idea, as I think has come out very clearly from both sides of the Committee during the debate. In war-time they will have to be a whole-time paid force, just as they were a whole-time paid service on the last occasion. I think we all agree that they must become full-time. In peace-time their organisation must correspond to their war-time rôle if their training and the tactical exercises which they undertake are to have any value whatsoever.
Every hon. Member who has spoken has welcomed the extension of the system of the mobile columns. I am bound to say that this came rather quickly after the Select Committee had made its Report. Every hon. Member has drawn attention to the inadequacy of the training of two weeks a year for the National Service Reserve. It seems to me, from experience in my own family, that the R.A.F. have no use whatever for National Service men, except for a small number of flying men and technicians. They have no use at all for the average National Service man.
Why cannot the R.A.F. let their men off the last six months of training and let them do six months' training for the Civil Defence Corps and for the mobile columns before they go out into their ordinary reserve service? As far as I can make out, 12 weeks is sufficient for all the training the R.A.F. intend to give to the average man, which means three-quarters or nine-tenths of the National Service men they call up. They spend eight weeks on basic training, four weeks or so on additional training, and the rest


of the time they have nothing to do. Why should they not spend six months afterwards doing civil defence training? I agree that the question will arise of how long they are to be allowed to be retained in the mobile columns, but at any rate they will have been trained in two services and the decision can be taken afterwards as to where they are to remain.
It seems to me that the operational forces which at present are being recruited on a voluntary basis for the Civil Defence Corps should be under the same control as the mobile columns and organised with the end in view that they will be required to move out of their own areas. It is true, as hon. Members have said, that under these conditions fewer of them will be recruited but, as has already been said, they would be highly-trained units, and it is better that they should be highly-trained units than that we should have the half-trained, low-morale, organisation which we have at present.
Behind the organisation of locally-trained volunteers for these services which should be a nucleus of the service itself, of the same standard as the mobile column and both under the same command, we must have strengthened technical schools, staff college and tactical school. I am very glad—again after the Select Committee had made its recommendation—that the Home Secretary has come round to the view that it is necessary to establish some of the instructors of those schools. I do not suggest that the subject was not under discussion at the time. Everything is under discussion—always under discussion, as the Home Secretary told us today; but it was not until the Select Committee reported that this establishment took place.
It is extremely important, because only in these technical schools, tactical school and staff college can we build up, during the years ahead—as long as we have to maintain the defence programme—the scientific knowledge and the tactics for this very unpleasant duty. We must provide a serious career for younger men in this work if there is to be any basis at all, any background, to the work of the Civil Defence Services.
The main criticism which the Estimates Committee made was of a lack of leadership and direction, and I think there is a

good deal of justice in the claim that the blame for it could be shared very broadly between Cabinet, the Ministers and the civil servants responsible. Certainly if there is no urgency at the top there is likely to be little urgency anywhere lower down.
Now that the Home Secretary has returned to the Chamber—and I realise that there are times when even he has to leave it—I must say that I cannot understand why he should have objected so strongly and suggested that the Report was an attack upon civil servants. He is well aware that the Estimates Committee is not allowed to investigate or report on matters of policy, and I hope he does not intend to follow his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture along a rather dangerous path. The Estimates Committee is perfectly entitled to say so if it thinks that the administration of a Department is inefficient and lacks leadership and direction. Before the Home Secretary returned to the Chamber, I said that I thought there was a good deal in the criticism that this was due to a lack of any serious pressure or drive from above.
The answer to what I thought was a very silly attack by the Home Secretary on the Estimates Committee is to be found in subsequent events. Incidentally, I thought it extraordinary that this attack was not mentioned in his speech today. The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot ride off criticism like that. I admit that he gave his formal reply some time ago, but all hon. Members on both sides of the Committee expected that he would deal with the serious criticisms which were made. Nothing in his speech has made us believe that there has been any change in attitude or outlook since the Committee reported.
The main answer to the attack which the Home Secretary made on the Committee lies in the measures which he has taken since the Committee reported, because, in addition to those things which I mentioned before the right hon. and learned Gentleman returned—such as the establishment of the instructors in the schools and the sudden decision to expand the mobile columns—since the Committee's Report was published we have had the introduction of the grant regulations for the gas and electricity


authorities and the agreement with the B.B.C., and tonight we are to have the regulations which will place responsibility for the collection of casualties on a section of the corps and on local authorities.
I must say that the indecision on that subject was a complete condemnation of the whole organisation and direction of civil defence. For year after year they could go on arguing about who was to collect the bodies and the casualties in the bombed area and no agreement could be reached because so many people were concerned. That is absolutely incredible. It is true that by the time the Committee reported some agreement had been reached, but not until tonight do we finally, by law, put the responsibility on a section of the Civil Defence Corps and on local authorities.
We still have no decision about the strengthening of basements in new buildings. As far as I know, the lawyers are still arguing about the acquisition of the existing deep shelters in London, although in two or three years they will pass back to the original owners. I do not know what the original owners will do with them, but in any event I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that it is a ludicrous situation.
As many hon. Members have said, there is no doubt that we need a completely new organisation at the top. I believe that the Ministry of Defence must be brought into the picture. The total sum which will be voted for civil defence must be related to the total defence expenditure, and it cannot be treated as such until it is considered in relation to the total defence expenditure. It is ridiculous to have it treated in small bits and pieces all over the place.
I believe that the operational and administrative functions must be separated. The operational functions must be under the civil defence chief-of-staff—not a part-time and apparently advisory commander-in-chief. I gather from an indication from the Home Secretary that the commander-in-chief is to be operational. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will read my speech, because I cannot make it over again. I dealt with what I call the two halves—the operational side of civil defence and the welfare and administrative side. The former should be under the chief-of-staff,

but the latter should be administered by the Departments concerned and coordinated, I suppose, by the Home Office. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) wanted the co-ordination to be done by an independent person, but I do not think that is necessary; I think the Home Office can do it, provided that it has an official to co-ordinate the work who has the necessary drive and is given the necessary support from the Minister.
But over the whole, both the operational and the administrative side, there must be a Minister responsible. I think that the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey) has suggested a Minister of State. I doubt whether any Minister below the rank of Minister of State would be able to do the battling which would be required with the Ministry of Defence and elsewhere, unless, of course, the Home Secretary could spare the time, which I do not think that he could, to take this matter really seriously. It needs a Minister who can drive the whole thing along, stand up for it and defend it in the House, not with the rather futile brief which we had from the right hon. and learned Gentleman today, but with real understanding, knowledge and enthusiasm.

Mr. David Renton: Would it be right for me, Colonel Gomme-Duncan, to draw attention to the extreme length of every speech which has been made so far today and to ask you to ask hon. Members about to speak to keep their speeches short?

The Temporary Chairman (Colonel Gomme-Duncan): That is a point of common sense rather than a point of order.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: May I raise a new exploratory point of order? In today's Motion there are two Estimates affecting Scotland, but no Scottish Member has been called.

The Temporary Chairman: That is not a point of order. The Chair endeavours to be fair in this matter.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Ian Harvey: I shall endeavour to co-operate with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton), with whom I have sympathy at this hour. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) made a somewhat damaging speech with regard


to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. My right hon. and learned Friend has had rather a bad afternoon, because he has been either damned with faint praise or not praised at all.
I think that the Committee has been less than fair to him and to the Government, because, with the exception of the speech of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), there has not been a very clear recognition of the extreme complexity of this problem. It is, indeed, a very difficult one for reasons which the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) outlined, although he gave no solution, which is a typical habit of his. [Interruption.] Evidently Scottish hon. Members are making their speeches as well.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East indicated that if we were to have a greater allocation of resources for civil defence it would have to be taken from some other source, but he did not say which. He asked, in his rhetorical manner, "What Government is responsible for establishing American bases in this country?" Had the hon. Member for Coventry, East remained in the Chamber, I would have asked him, "What Government has made it necessary for this country to have American bases?" That seems to me to be at the root of this problem.
It is also true, as I think the Home Secretary will admit, that when we are dealing with the development of offensive weapons there is often a tendency for them to outstrip in development defensive weapons, and that is the situation in which we find ourselves today.
If perhaps there is a criticism of my right hon. and learned Friend, I think it is that he has followed too closely the policy for civil defence which was, in fact, initiated by his predecessor. But that policy was started under conditions of immediate crisis. One of the very right policies which this Government have adopted has been to refuse to allow civil defence recruitment to be stimulated by the incentive of fear. That means that an alternative has to be put in its place. I think that the alternative was, in fact, provided by my right hon. and learned Friend when he outlined the necessity for

establishing civil defence as the fourth arm of defence.
If one point has come out of this debate it is that I think the realisation that civil defence has to occupy a changed place in our defence services. I entirely agree with the right hon. Member for South Shields that it can no longer be regarded as a service in which the elderly or infirm are expected to go. I would ask the Home Secretary to see, when he talks about civil defence being the fourth arm of defence, that it has equality of status with the other three defence Services.
I believe that to be a fundamental requirement. It has already been outlined clearly in this debate that in any future conflict, which we all hope to avoid, one of the main objectives must be the destruction of the morale of the civil population and the sources of national energy and supply. That will be one of the points on which the attack will finally be made. Therefore, civil defence, which is the direct defence of all that, must receive the fullest possible priority in order that it may be built up.
Some discussion has been going on about the control of civil defence and whether that control should be by the military or by local authorities. I believe that there are two clearly-defined elements of civil defence. There is the central element running down to the new organisation of the mobile column from the Home Office and there is the local authority. I do not believe that any proposal which eliminates the local authority from the planning of civil defence in time of peace is a feasible proposition. On the other hand, I entirely agree that the military principle—not military control—should be operated under the centralised system of civil defence which now finds a new and fuller expression in the mobile columns.
I believe that in the mobile columns we have a new civil defence development of the most extreme importance. I am certain that they have to be built up as of right. I would go further than some hon. Members because I think that the National Service Act should, in due course, be altered to allow men to be called up for civil defence. I do not dissent from the present proposition as a temporary expedient to divert men from the Royal Air Force for this purpose. I do not agree with the analysis of the hon.


Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who made a very good party point but did not give a particularly accurate account of the situation.

Mr. Wigg: If the hon. Member says that what I said is not accurate, will he quote from HANSARD? All the quotations are there to establish that only under extreme pressure did the Government agree to call up Royal Air Force reservists for part-time training. Even now, only a fraction are being called up.

Mr. Harvey: I agree with that, but the arrangement for civil defence was not to solve that problem. The civil defence problem existed first. The hon. Member for Dudley has put it in such a way that he thoroughly misrepresented the position, which he is quite entitled to do, but he must not expect us to accept his points quite so easily. I hope. therefore, that my right hon. and learned Friend will look at this matter again in respect of the mobile columns, because they are intensely important with regard 'to the future development of civil defence as a fourth arm of defence on complete parity with the other three Services.
I realise that the requirements of the other Services at present are very great. The hon. Member for Coventry, East suggested that we should make certain cuts. I did not agree with the cuts that he proposed. I believe that the first answer in this problem with which we are confronted is to build up an effective offensive system of defence to make it extremely difficult to dispatch, and also to deter the dispatch of, these weapons. The argument that we should always wait for them first to drop on us before anything is done is one to which I would never subscribe, because in that way, in view of the experiences we have had in the field of foreign policy, we would get the answer we deserve. But I do not intend to develop that theme tonight.
I should like, as I promised, to cooperate with my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon, who asked that Members' speeches should be brief. I hope that whoever may have the good fortune to be called after me will do the same, so that as many Members as possible may participate in this debate, which, I am glad to see, has now attracted many hon. Members who previously took little

interest in civil defence but who, now that it is more in the news, are coming forward to take part in our discussions.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: Having waited five hours to catch your eye, Sir Rhys, I shall, nevertheless, respond to the plea of the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey) and be as brief as I can.
My first comment upon the Civil Defence Service is that what it suffers from is part-time direction from the highest possible level. The Home Secretary, even if he were a superman, could not do what the situation requires of him. What has he been engaged in for months past? Has he been working out a civil defence policy in detail? Oh, no; television has occupied his time. He is also the Minister responsible for a special interest in Welsh affairs. He has been dealing with the Landlord and Tenant Bill. In fact, he owes his place in the, Government to his high reputation as a great lawyer.
Whenever the Government have a bad case, it is to the Home Secretary that they turn. This means that the poor chap, is working overtime, because all the Government's cases are bad. He started with the Bill dealing with brewing early in the life of this Parliament, and I should not be surprised if his table is piled high with briefs which have been passed to him which the Law Officers of the Crown would not touch with a barge pole. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, therefore, has no time for civil defence, except when it breaks into the news because Coventry goes on strike.
The aspect with which I want to deal is how civil defence impinges upon the Armed Forces. Listening here to speech after speech, I have become considerably confused about what are called the mobile columns and their training. No doubt I shall be corrected if I go wrong or do anything that the hon. Member for Harrow, East thinks is unfair, for that is the last thing I would wish to be.
As I understand, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence announced on 2nd March that he had at long last, because he could not escape-from it and something had to be done, tackled the problem of the Royal Air Force National Service men who were doing no part-time training. After tre


mendous pressure to get the figures from the hon. Gentleman, we had established that there were over 100,000 Royal Air Force National Service men who, last year, were liable for part-time training, but that only 8,000 were doing it. That was pointing to a breakdown in the principle of universality upon which the National Service legislation is founded.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence came to the House and said that he was drawing up a scheme which would begin to operate in 1955, and that when it reached its ceiling 30,000 Royal Air Force men would be called up every year for part-time training. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was kind enough to tell us that in 1955 only 15,000 would be called up and in the following year there would be two batches of 15,000, making 30,000 in all doing 14 days' training. I hope I have got it right, because we have heard six or more different versions of these proposals. If I am wrong I would be much obliged if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would correct me now, because the rest of what I want to say rests upon it.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: There is only one point and I think the hon. Gentleman appreciates it. These National Service men were members of the Royal Air Force who would not be required for service for, say, the first 12 months of the war. The proposal, of course, as I indicated in my speech, is not limited to R.A.F. men, but at present the R.A.F. men are there. Subject to that I agree with the hon. Member.

Mr. Wigg: The constructive suggestion I wish to put forward is that I want the Home Secretary to persuade his Service colleagues to take a certain step. He will have difficulty in doing it, because it is difficult to convince them that, although a man wears uniform for two years he is in essence a civilian and his period in the Armed Forces is just a break of two years in his life, the normal span of which is 70 years. Before a man goes into the Forces and after he comes out he has civic responsibilities which he can be required to discharge as a part-time volunteer.
If the right hon. and learned Gentleman could persuade his Service colleagues to accept that point of view, then the Service Ministers themselves, without prodding from the Home Secretary or from hon.

and right hon. Gentlemen in this Committee, could set about seeing that every man, whether in the Navy, Army or Air Force, on his return to civilian life was acquainted with the kind of situation that a part-time volunteer has to face. In other words, every National Service man ought to be trained in civil defence in those two years.
Let us envisage the situation in Coventry, for instance. Thousands of young men will go from Coventry into the Armed Forces, will do their two years, and will return to that city. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said, these young men are engaged in the manufacture of two-thirds of the country's armaments industry. It is all Lombard Street to a China orange whether, after they have done their two year's service, they will ever again be called up to the Armed Forces. After they leave the Services they will become important members of the industrial army. They will not be called up for service at all.
Therefore, in order that they can discharge their duties as citizens, either in the industries where they follow their daily occupations, or at home at night whether looking after their families and neighbours, it would be the most simple, commonsense thing to ensure that they are trained in civil defence while doing their National Service. This will not detract in any way from the £1,500 million which we are spending on defence. In fact, it will increase the men's efficiency as soldiers, sailors or airmen because it will give purpose to their training.
One of the greatest indictments of National Service is its purposelessness. The Services take the young man and give him basic training. He is marched up the street and marched back again and he gets completely browned off. He does not know what it is all about. But if we can convince the young men not only from Coventry, but from the industrial areas and from London and Dudley, that in civil defence training there is purpose in their call up then we shall be making a considerable advance.
As the years go by their chance of recall becomes less and less. Why, in the name of goodness, will the Government not adopt the commonsense policy of seeing that though they have to be trained as soldiers, they should be treated


as civilians, so that we can use them to provide the nucleus of trained personnel for civil defence?

Mr. Ian Harvey: But if they are in industry, they will become involved in industrial civil defence schemes and they will not be available for mobile columns, because the same considerations with regard to their industrial occupation will apply.

Mr. Wigg: I am not talking about the mobile columns but about what I regard as the local foundation, the part-time men. We should give them the best training we can while they are doing their two years. The mobile columns ought to be manned exclusively by members of the Armed Forces. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the other men should do their basic training and then should go into civil defence.
I regard what I call the heavy mobile civil defence as an essential part of the Armed Forces of the Crown in the same way that R.E.M.E. or the R.A.S.C. are a part. It must be one of the services which the Army, if that is chosen, renders to the community. Asking that the National Service men, as part of their training, shall be taught the rudiments of civil defence seems to me to be absolute common sense, if only because the men will spend a limited period of their time in the Armed Forces and will spend the rest of their time as civilians.
If ever the terrible misfortune should come upon us that we are attacked either by unconventional or by conventional weapons on the scale of those directed against us at the end of the last war, one of the major factors will be the maintenance of law and order. From the description given by the Home Secretary this afternoon of the devastation that can be caused, it is obvious that here is another problem which will have to be faced, and it can never be solved if we depend upon local resources.
So, from whatever point of view it is regarded—mobile columns, the maintenance of essential services, the maintenance of law and order—this problem has to be considered from a national point of view. We shall never work it out until the Government either charge a Minister with this task or see that whoever is responsible has all the power and authority of the Government behind him in tackling the job.
I do not believe that is being done at the present time, for the reasons I have indicated. If I may say so with respect, even if the right hon. and learned Gentleman was a greater man than he is, he could not deal with this work and also deal with his multifarious other tasks. If this debate does nothing else, I hope it will convince the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he will be doing his duty to his colleagues and the country if he will go back to the Prime Minister and ask him to have a look at the matter again.

8.44 p.m.

Mr. David Renton: I have some sympathy with what the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said about part-time direction and I shall return to that later. He was a little hard on my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary over the R.A.F. Reserve, for I think that the Home Secretary has solved two problems at once by the decision which has been taken.
My main reason for asking for the attention of the House is because I have a bright story to tell in a rather gloomy debate. It so happens that my constituency has had far and away the best civil defence recruiting figures in the country. No fewer than 32 people per 1,000 have been recruited, which is several times the national average and is about 50 per cent. better than any other county or borough. It is not only that a large proportion of people have been recruited, but of those who have been I understand that we have about the highest percentage of trained civil defence people as well.
It might be to the advantage of the Committee to know how that is being done. I should say, in the first place, that I have had no part in it. In any event, politics are best kept out of it. There are four main reasons why Huntingdonshire has been successful. The first is that there is the right spirit among the people, a spirit of responsibility and patriotism, which also has brought them to the top of the whole country in the National Savings campaign. Secondly, good leadership is needed.
I do not think that we could possibly have achieved what has been achieved in Huntingdonshire on the basis of part-time leadership by a civil defence officer. We happen to have a retired brigadier, a very able man who is very good at persuading


people, firmly but tactfully. Before he came we achieved very little, but his methods have certainly brought very great success. It is most vital that in each county and county borough and large town one man should be chosen as a paid whole-time leader, he having been trained in the essentials and being a man of proved ability and personality.
The third thing which is necessary for success, and which has certainly prevailed in Huntingdonshire, largely because it is a very small county and one could not obtain it so easily elsewhere, is co-operation between the multifarious people and authorities concerned. There must be co-operation between the civil defence organisation and the local authority, of which it can be said the civil defence organisation is part though they could easily drift apart, and the various voluntary organisations and also the police and Home Guard and all kinds of people.
Unless the effective civil defence unit is small enough for all those people to make co-operation easy, co-operation will be lacking. We have heard talk of central and regional direction. I think it best for direction to be based on the local authorities and for the grouping of the local authorities to be such as not to make units which are too large. Some of our counties are too big for this kind of co-operation. Sometimes a large county could very well be split. Greater keenness and efficiency would result.
The fourth essential is that every town, village and volunteer should be made to understand—and it should be clearly defined—what their part is in the scheme of things. It is not enough for people to know that there is a threat of war and of hydrogen bombs. It is vital that they should know exactly what part they themselves would have to play if the worst should happen.
Moving from the subject of Huntingdonshire to matters of more general interest, I should like to ask the Joint Under-Secretary two questions. The first concerns the mobile columns of which we have heard a great deal. At the moment, I am rather perplexed about transport for these columns. We understand that the personnel of the columns will be formed into cadres. What about the vehicles they will use? Are they to be requisitioned at the last moment when

an emergency breaks out—requisitioned from we do not know where—or will they be requisitioned from vehicles which are definitely allocated for the purpose beforehand? I suppose it is too much to hope that the vehicles which the mobile columns will use will be kept in a good state of maintenance in storage. I do not suppose the money would run to that and it would be a counsel of perfection.
My second point follows very closely on that. What is happening about emergency transport services which will be needed, most especially for the delivery of food? I anticipate that the railways will be partly paralysed or, in any event, very heavily overburdened on the outbreak of war and after the first few bombs have been dropped. It is most essential that we should be prepared to make the fullest use of our fleet of commercial goods vehicles and buses, public and private.
I do not make a party point of this; when the last war broke out there were no nationalised vehicles and the railways had not been nationalised, but everything was put under Government control. A scheme had been worked out beforehand. In the light of experience gained, one would expect that already there would be a workable scheme. I should like to know whether that can be confirmed and how far it has been developed.
With regard to the general higher organisation, the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) that there should be a Minister for Home Defence should have further examination. It seems to me that the various authorities and forces, which will be responsible for the defence of this country in the event of an emergency, should be cooperating a great deal, especially on what I would call the Q-side. It seems rather absurd that civil defence and the Home Guard should have separate rationing arrangements. It may be that there is already a measure of co-operation, but a Minister for Home Defence would be able to ensure that there was saving in manpower, in energy and in organisation, which could follow from closer co-operation between the various forces.
I wish to take up a point made by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). There is no one who


can develop a fallacy with greater eloquence than he. I am sorry that the hon. Member is not here. I thought he developed a major fallacy this afternoon when he based his argument principally upon the mere arithmetic of expenditure. He said that only £29 million of our very large defence budget was being spent on civil defence and that was a measure of the inadequacy of civil defence, which he called "a mere façade." The hon. Member was not, of course, comparing like with like when he made that point. He overlooked the fact that civil defence is based largely on voluntary organisation, whereas the whole, or nearly all, of our defence expenditure is based on the principle of everyone being paid.
It might interest the Committee to know that in Huntingdonshire, with our very efficient state of affairs, the average cost per volunteer per year is only about £9. In civil defence a little money goes a very long way in terms of effort and organisation. I do not know the cost of maintaining a soldier in the Army today, but it must be hundreds of pounds. I say that the arguments of the hon. Member were not valid.
I trust that the rest of the country will benefit from the fine example set by my constituents. These country people are only too proud and willing to be setting up an organisation now, which will be of great benefit, especially to people evacuated from the large cities—perhaps in-chiding Coventry—and I hope that their example will be an inspiration to others.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey: I wish to say only a few words which I think we should reiterate to the Government. We must put to them the main issue which faces any Government of this country. And an agonisingly difficult issue, of course, it is at the present time—the issue of civil defence. As we have listened to this strange and rather doom-laden debate, in a thinly-attended Committee, but yet discussing an issue which we have all felt is quite literally one of life and death, I do not think that any of us has really been able to conclude that, as things stand today, with our present measures, this country is not fatally vulnerable to attack by the hydrogen bomb.
It was not the eloquent words of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry,

East (Mr. Crossman) which convinced me of that; it was much more the careful understatements of the Home Secretary himself. It was much more the sense of every speech we have had. When one really thinks of the consequences of hydrogen bomb attacks—there is no reason why it should be only one hydrogen bomb today—on this country and the measures we have so far even thought of taking to meet them.
It seems to me that one is bound to say that. It is not to say that this country is impotent, because, after all, potential aggressors too are fatally vulnerable to hydrogen bomb attacks. I believe it is not the case that the enormous land masses, the countries like Russia, are invulnerable to hydrogen bomb attacks. The hydrogen bomb has turned out to be so much easier to make—it is a terrible thought—than the scientists thought, that even those vast countries are almost as vulnerable as we are. So it is not true to say that that makes us impotent.
Nevertheless, let us face the fact that in present circumstances, and doing only what we are doing today, we are appallingly vulnerable. Therefore, what are we going to do about it? There seem to me to be only three policies. There is a policy of throwing our hand in and saying that there is nothing we can do about it. That is a policy which speaker after speaker on both sides of the Committee has rejected.
Then there is the policy of doing about what we are doing now, spending about £30 million a year. I put it to the Home Secretary, and to the Joint Under-Secretary who is to reply, that there is really very little to be said for that half-measure. To spend about £30 million, remembering the results which can be obtained by spending it, makes it a fair and unanswerable point of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East when he says that that only gives a pretence of civil defence, and can give no more.
Fact after fact has come out in this debate. Fact after fact comes out in the Report of the Select Committee, where we see that up to now civil defence has simply been used as a convenience, as for instance, it was used during the textile depression—to give orders to the textile industry; as it has been used when the


Air Ministry did not know what to do with its reservists—to provide a convenient purpose for calling up reservists for their reserve liability.
The Home Secretary's speech today simply carried on in that tradition. I thought so especially when he came to his main announcement about the controller-designate, and we found that he was only to be half-time. It really was the most terrible bathos, when we think of the magnitude of this problem, to be told that we are to have a half-time controller-designate. I have a sort of picture of him catching the H-bombs in one hand, as it were, as they fall down. That is no spirit in which to meet such a problem.
When the right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to talk about the measures to ensure a water supply for fire fighting, I could not help remembering that the scientists have told us that if, for example, a hydrogen bomb were dropped in, or near, the River Thames, the temperature in that part of the river would probably rise to boiling point, and the area would become radioactive. Therefore, measures of this kind, and the sort of amiable measures we heard described by the hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton), while no doubt excellent, are only toying with the problem.
The Home Secretary said no word about what is perhaps the biggest single issue of all, the question of shelters. Once that subject is approached it involves an entirely different order of magnitude of expenditure. Therefore, not perhaps this evening, because that may be asking too much, but sooner rather than later, the Government—not only the Home Secretary but the whole Cabinet—must face this issue.
I am the last to deny that if the Government came to the conclusion—reluctantly, as any Government would—that civil defence has to be taken seriously, it would make an appreciable difference to the offensive power of this country, and very different decisions would have Lo be made. To take civil defence seriously would mean a different order of magnitude of expenditure and of diversion of manpower, and that would have an enormous consequences. It would mean a radical revision of our whole military policy and of the appre

ciation of the Chiefs of Staff regarding the capacity of this country in other directions. Manpower and money used for this purpose could not be used for other purposes. It would mean a revision of our Commonwealth policy and our commitments all over the world. It might mean a revision of our foreign policy. That is why, in discussing this apparently limited matter of civil defence, the Committee is touching on one of the most vital questions at present before the country.
We wish the Government to give far more serious consideration to this question. All this amiable description of detail which we have heard from the Home Secretary is only toying with the problem. We desire a broader outline of the Government's proposals. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not the man to give it to us, it should come from some other member of the Cabinet, or from the Prime Minister himself. Now that we realise the extent of the menace, we should know the mind of the Government on the problem. I repeat that if it is to be taken seriously, policy decisions must be made, and consequences of enormous importance must be faced.
All the Committee can do today is to say that we see no sign that the Government are facing the issue. We must call upon them, sooner rather than later, to tell the House their mind and their decision on this issue of life and death, on which the safety—the very survival—of the British people may well depend.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: My right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) correctly stated the nature of this debate when he said that it had been conducted along two lines: that not only was too little being spent on civil defence but—and this was a more detailed criticism—what little was being spent was being spent badly. I agree with that.
I disagree with by right hon. Friend in his comments on the Home Secretary's reference to measures for preserving and increasing the water supply for fire fighting. Surely we are up against the problem that not only have we to prepare to meet an atomic bomb attack, but also to meet an attack by conventional weapons. If the debate were limited merely to what we were doing about the hydrogen bomb


there might be some validity in the argument, but we have to cover the whole range of conventional as well as of atomic weapons.

Mr. Strachey: I entirely agree. I am not saying that we should not take measures for water supply and fire fighting, but that the scale on which we are doing those things only toys with the problem facing us.

Mr. de Freitas: Then there is less difference between us than I thought.
On the subject that what little was being spent was being spent badly, I thought it strange that the Home Secretary did not comment in any way upon the Select Committee's Report. Others—my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale), the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu)—have certainly reminded the Home Secretary of that. I am sure that the Joint Under-Secretary will deal with some of the criticisms which were in the Select Committee's Report and which have been repeated here tonight.
It has been natural, I think, that the mobile column was the topic most discussed. Eighteen months ago I went to Epsom at the Home Secretary's invitation and heard him launch the first experimental mobile column of Royal Air Force and Army men. That was 18 months ago and it is still the only column. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) that it would be better to have 6,000 men permanently in a column rather than sitting in the Canal Zone. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said that in the event of war whatever we did about calling up reservists for mobile columns, what was important was that there should be already in existence the officers, warrant officers, and potential non-commissioned officers to instruct and organise the reservists.
I am sure that that is the key. Let the Home Secretary take his courage in both hands and attack the Service Departments to get from them the men and the money he needs for these mobile columns. Let him take courage from the remarkable fact that there has been almost unanimous approval for the principle of using National Service men for civil

defence. I cannot recall any hon. Member who has spoken against that.
There is little I can add about the mobile columns except a comment on the proposed use of Royal Air Force reservists. I think that it is time we realised that in its effect on reservists the mobilisation of the Air Force is completely different from the mobilisation of the Army. The Army, especially infantry, can expand rapidly with the call-up of reservists, since they have been trained. The Air Force can expand only slowly, because its size is governed to a large extent by the availability of expensive and elaborate equipment.
I cannot see any condition in which there would not be tens of thousands of R.A.F. reservists who could not possibly be used in the first year, and possibly within two years of the outbreak of war. What greater use could they have than in a mobile column? But only if there is a regular component of officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers in that mobile column.
I want to make it clear what we on these benches are suggesting. My right hon. Friend made it clear, and I should like to repeat it. The control of a column is a military matter. But there should be civilian control of services such as welfare. The Home Secretary stressed the importance of the welfare service, to which I have just referred—

Mr. Ian Harvey: The hon. Member was talking about military control. What exactly does he mean by military control—under whose control?

Mr. de Freitas: I do not want to go into the whole of that again, because I have other points to make. I did not want any confusion to arise lest it be thought that what was being suggested on these benches was that there should be military control of such things as welfare. When I last went out of this Chamber I found that one or two hon. Members were under the impression that that was being argued.
The welfare service suffers from the fact that it is nobody's baby, and I wonder whether the Home Office should not think again on the organisation not only in Whitehall, but in the country as a whole. What is the present position? Evacuation comes under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government; the care of the


homeless is under the Ministry of Health; emergency feeding is under the Ministry of Food; information—that is tracing and inquiries—is under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government; and training is under the Home Office.
This division is repeated at the lower levels. The care of the homeless—the rest centres—come under the county councils; billeting under the district councils; food under the county councils; and information under the district councils. How much study has been given to the possibility of appointing a controller of welfare, just as there is a controller of civil defence? I do not know if that is the answer, but it appears to me and to many other people concerned about civil defence that there is a great disadvantage in these divisions of responsibility.
I mentioned a moment ago that the Home Office was responsible for training. Am I right in thinking that the Home Office is responsible for the whole of Great Britain, including Scotland, and assists the Secretary of State for Scotland in that task? I ask this question because although some hon. Friends of mine from Scottish constituencies have intervened, unfortunately they have not actually made any substantial, connected speech. I notice that at Taymouth the cost of training a student is higher than in the English colleges. I wonder whether, since the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is present, he could tell the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department the reason. I hope that it is not a separate training establishment in Scotland, but that the whole task is performed by the Home Office.
There is always a danger of private armies in circumstances like this, but nowhere is it more dangerous than in industrial civil defence. One of the dangers of working through local authorities is that other organisations such as industrial civil defence tend to think that they are being left out and that their particular rôle is not sufficiently appreciated, their particular rôle being to protect the workers in industry, maintain morale and, at the same time, keep the wheels turning and production going.
I know that there are some factory managers and others who have a wonderful excuse for doing nothing, because no

one has yet devised the perfect organisation. There are some. They are the men who moan. "Give us a lead," and then sit back and do nothing. But have not the good units of the Industrial Civil Defence Service some justification for their complaints? Last week I asked the Home Secretary a Question concerning radiac equipment and its availability for training Industrial Civil Defence Service units. The answer I got was that certain arrangements had been made and that, as far as he was aware, those arrangements were working satisfactorily. I had not put down that Question idly. I had had definite information that units which were not getting their training equipment were repeatedly asking the Home Office for them but could not get them, and were thrown back upon buying sub-standard equipment if they wanted to go ahead with their training.
There is another small point to which I should like to refer, because it makes me wonder whether the Home Office is doing all it can to help in this important field of industrial civil defence. Last year's "Industrial Bulletin No. 2"—it came out last July—gave a design of the suggested badge. It had the English lion standing up and the Scottish lion lying down—although I admit it had a sword in its hand, which is in accordance with heraldic tradition. I do not know who is responsible for producing those badges, but I am told that when a unit which is proud of itself wants to obtain these badges it cannot get them. I should like to know what is the present position.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton was pleased to note that so many of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Estimates had been acted upon by the Home Secretary. I was pleased to note that many of the recommendations of the First Report of the Mabane Committee were accepted. Tat Committee was charged with the improvement of publicity and recruitment. The Home Office is certainly more in need of guidance on publicity than any other Department. By long custom it is a dignified, reticent Department, and by long tradition it does not like self-advertisement. That may be justified in the traditional range of its duties, but it is a weakness in civil defence.
I wonder whether more than two or three hon. Members present know that


in May of last year Her Majesty the Queen was graciously pleased to assume the title of Head of the Civil Defence Corps. This was a great honour—so great that the Home Office virtually kept the good news to itself. Hardly a member of the Civil Defence Corps knew about it, or knows about it now.

Mr. Cyril Bence: The Home Secretary did not know about it.

Mr. de Freitas: I do not envy the job of the public relations officer at the Home Office. He must have a terrible time.
One aspect of public relations concerns the Ministry of Health. That Department has a first-rate organisation in the National Hospital Service Reserve. What uninspiring initials—N.H.S.R.? Surely the Ministry of Health can think of more attractive initials—something which can be compared with the W.R.N.S. "Wrens," or the W.A.V.E.S., "Waves," instead of a mouthful like N.H.S.R.? The whole effect is lost behind that most uninteresting collection of initials.
The Home Secretary and others who followed civil defence at times when it was not so much in the public eye as it is today now know that I have often asked for the publication of a book giving information on the effect of atomic bombs. More than once I have pointed out in this Chamber that unless such a book should be forthcoming the public would fall back on the popular Sunday newspaper approach of horror and hopelessness. The problems we have to face are terribly hard without the vast exaggerations put about by people who obviously do not understand the fact that the Home Secretary gave us today, which anyone concerned with civil defence knows, that the radius of destruction of a bomb varies not as to its power but as to the cube root of its power. The absence of reliable information is one of the greatest single causes of helplessness and hopelessness, of which Coventry is an example.
Whatever we do we must not either mentally or physically dig a hole in the ground and creep into it. The western world is accustomed to being under the threat of war, destruction and starvation, yet it built up a great civilisation. Ignor

ing possible dangers, the people built not only for the present but for the future. We have evidence of that in the great cathedral in my constituency. So today, we have to build for the future. We must plant forests, build cathedrals, build factories and power stations, and houses—and control centres.
I was encouraged by what the Home Secretary said about the W.V.S. I shall concentrate on the welfare aspects of it because it is in welfare that, I believe, the W.V.S. can be of the greatest service. It can supplement information that the Home Office issues. Being an unofficial body it can issue Roneoed forms interpreting official instructions, and giving useful information and advice to housewives. In not having ranks it can fit in with other organisations, such as the local authority civil defence organiations, without creating problems of seniority.
I am a convert to this view. I thought that the undemocratic, somewhat officer class outlook of the W.V.S. would have so many disadvantages that the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages. I have been converted, as I say, to the other point of view, and I believe that its advantages certainly outweigh the disadvantages.
I referred earlier to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West, and I said that we had to be careful, in dealing with this problem, not to concentrate entirely on the hydrogen bomb type of warfare. I think that in this debate I have missed only one speech, but I have not heard any one refer to the problem of gas.
I feel it is right that we should consider that because in our anxiety to mitigate, as far as possible, the damage that can be caused by atomic and hydrogen weapons we must not overlook the problem of gas. I am particularly worried about the possibility of nerve gas attack. It is horrifying to think of killing millions of fellow human beings with odourless, colourless, tasteless, deadly gas, but I cannot believe that that can be any worse than blowing people to pieces with high explosives.
If we were to kill each other by the million with gases we might yet earn the gratitude of the historians and archaeologists of the future, who might say that at least the inhabitants of the west


ern countries, in the second half of the 20th century, were civilised or cultured enough to kill each other but not to destroy everything their ancestors had made during thousands of years of civilisation; that they at least did not destroy the buildings, books and pictures which their ancestors had created.
Not a word has been said about the defence against the nerve gases. I am particularly worried about the gas which was developed during the last war in a town which is I believe in Poland. It seems to me that there are obvious military advantages to our enemies in occupying a country where the factories and houses are intact, although the people have been killed, rather than in moving into an entirely devastated area. Consider how difficult it was for us to move into bombed Germany when we occupied it after the war.
Four years ago this month, when we had an important civil defence debate, I mentioned by way of illustration how my world differed from that of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, who was then Home Secretary, saying that my earliest memory was of a bomb falling during an air raid in London in the First World War. Since then, of course, our powers of destruction have increased beyond imagination, but the greatest danger which confronts us is that of hopelessness and despair. There will always be a perimeter to an area of attack, and the men and women on that perimeter are entitled to as much help as is possible from their fellows. London should be ready to help Liverpool, Liverpool ready to help Glasgow—wherever it may be.
Having talked so much about mobile columns and the higher standards required, we must remember to look at the welfare side of the civil defence and see it as a service of neighbours coming together to help. We must not forget Mr. and Mrs. Jones coming together and apparently doing nothing but drinking quantities of tea. That is an aspect of the welfare side, of the neighbourly side of civil defence.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State knows that he has many questions to answer, and I will give him full time to answer them. Above all, we have criticised the slow progress in developing the mobile columns. Perhaps the Home

Office was to blame for that, or perhaps it was the Service Departments. I do not know, but certainly the Government have not tackled the problem firmly enough, Secondly, I criticised the lack of information about the effects of a hydrogen bomb attack. Thirdly, there was my criticism about defence against gas.
There is no question but that the Committee as a whole—it was not a case of one side of the Committee only—is becoming more and more critical of the way in which civil defence matters are being handled. We believe that the Government have many criticisms to meet. There is no division between the two sides of the Committee, however, on the need for civil defence, and we on these benches will continue to work with the Government in bringing what protection we can to our fellow citizens and in encouraging the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who have come forward to serve the country in civil defence.

9.29 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): The debate has shown a remarkable unanimity about the importance of civil defence. No hon. Member in any part of the Committee has done other than emphasise its very great importance. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) made a number of criticisms, as did hon. Members from all quarters of the Committee, and, if I may say so, that was to be expected in the case of a developing service such as civil defence. The right hon. Gentleman's criticisms were of a practical character and were most helpful, as, indeed, were those from other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas).
The subject matter of this debate impinges on major aspects of policy. My right hon. and learned Friend has already made a full review of the subject in its general context. I shall not attempt to make a second review this evening. My task is to answer specific points which have been raised during the debate. There is one large subject which has been mentioned by so many hon. Members that I think that I should say a word about it right away, and that is the question of the total expenditure upon civil defence.
I think all hon. Members, without exception, have urged the need for greater


expenditure. I think they have also recognised that if more money were to be spent upon civil defence it would have to be at the expense of other expenditure, and, in particular, at the expense of the Fighting Services. I think it is right that I should point out that £27 million a year, although it may not be very large by comparison with other figures which have been mentioned, is quite a considerable sum of money.
As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) has pointed out, we are not here dealing with a full-time service but with a service the vast majority of whose members are voluntary and paid nothing.

Dr. H. Morgan: It must be ready for any emergency.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: It is only fair to point out that we are dealing largely with matters of planning rather than of practice. I do not think any hon. Member is suggesting that we should keep anything like a standing full-time Civil Defence Service. Therefore, the comparisons which have been made are not really valid. I think that it is also fair to say that the plans which were put forward by my right hon. and learned Friend today involve using no fewer than 100,000 men on a full-time basis in the event of an emergency. So we are proposing to take a considerable share of the nation's manpower in that unhappy event.
Hon. Members have suggested directions in which further expenditure might be incurred. The two directions which have been mentioned are, on the one hand, dispersal in the widest sense of that word—I do not think I need enlarge on the term—and, on the other hand, shelters. As hon. Members have pointed out, these two aspects of civil defence are to some extent rivals for the money that is available, and it is necessary to complete our appreciation of the situation which has been created by the hydrogen bomb before deciding on which of these two the emphasis must be laid. Hon. Members will, I think, agree that to seek to go ahead now before that appreciation is completed might involve very considerable waste of money.

Mr. Ede: Is the choice as between one and the other? Is not the real choice between the proportion to be given to each? They are complementary and not opposites.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has pointed that out. I quite agree. I do not think, however, that that invalidates the conclusion to which I came, namely, that the appreciation must be complete.
I will try to deal one by one with the various points which have been made, and I will start by referring to a point made in an interruption of the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend by the right hon. Member for South Shields. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the fall-out from atomic cloud of radioactive matter. The behaviour of the radioactive cloud resulting from an atomic explosion is governed by factors such as the height at which the explosion takes place and the direction and force of the wind at varying heights. Even with the most powerful bomb, however, danger to life would result at any particular place only through some circumstance such as rain falling through the atomic cloud. Because of these considerations, it is impossible to give the precise information for which the right hon. Gentleman asked, but I think I have made it clear that it would be exceptional to find serious danger to life from atomic fall-out.

Mr. F. Beswick: When the hon. Gentleman says that, is he taking into account the petition which has been placed before the United Nations Committee from the Marshall Islanders, who suffered serious damage, although they were 500 miles away from the explosion in the Pacific?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am giving the best scientific advice that is available to the Government. I think that the hon. Member can take it that it is as good as may be within the limits of what is possible.
The right hon. Gentleman referred, as did a number of other hon. Members, to the Report of the Select Committee on Estimates. The reason my right hon. and learned Friend did not refer to that Report is that detailed answers to the specific points raised have been given to the Select Committee and have been published; and the reply which my right hon. and learned Friend made today covered a great deal, if not all, of the ground. I remind hon. Members that the scene has changed somewhat since the


publication of that Report. We would have been fighting the last war, if I may use an unfortunate metaphor, had my right hon. and learned Friend dealt with the points raised at that time, although, of course, some of them are still valid.

Mr. Albu: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Home Secretary made no new announcement at all.

Mr. Crossman: A part-time commander-in-chief.

Mr. Albu: Oh, yes—a part-time commander-in-chief.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: That is because, no doubt, my right hon. and learned Friend answered the points fairly fully in the previous reply.

Mr. Crossman: He worsened the position.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The right hon. Member for South Shields, speaking about the mobile columns, said that he hoped there would be—I think this was the term he used—a full-time skeleton available in the event of mobilisation becoming necessary. Other hon. Members raised questions to a similar effect.

Mr. Ede: I think I said "a fully-trained skeleton."

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; a fully-trained skeleton.
The main benefit of the scheme which my right hon. and learned Friend outlined will be to provide a reservoir of partly-trained manpower. It is recognised, however, that this will lose much of its value if the men cannot be mobilised in operational formations. This depends in part upon providing a nucleus of officers and N.C.O.s and in part upon organising suitable mobilisation centres. That, I think, is what the right hon. Gentleman had in mind. Both these problems are being dealt with by the Home Office, in conjunction with the Air Ministry. It is intended to make progress with these plans in time for them to be effective when the flow of trained men becomes available. The R.A.F. in particular have accepted the commitment to provide officers for the purpose.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about fixed controls above ground, and the hon

Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) also made a point in that connection. The original intention was to provide an extensive network of protected control rooms for all or nearly all Civil Defence Corps authorities. I am not making a point of this, but I think that was the intention of the previous Government. It was taken over and accepted by us, and considerable progress has been made with this work in the principal built-up areas. That was at the time before the appearance of the H-bomb.
It is true that the possibility of more powerful bombs makes it necessary to reconsider this programme. It would not be wise to attempt to lay down hard-and-fast rules. In many cases the local authorities concerned are most anxious to proceed with new control rooms. It is proposed to examine the borderline cases individually and decide whether to proceed with the plans which have been made.

Mr. Crossman: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to ask a question about these borderline cases? Is he seriously telling the Committee that there is a single case in which a land telephone line connected with a control room above ground could possibly make sense, not only in terms of the H-bomb, but in terms of the T.N.T. bomb of 1943? Can he tell us what he means by borderline cases. Is it the local authorities which can be duped into wasting their money on these structures?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: It does not mean that. It means there are cases where it would be convenient to have the control room above ground.

Mr. Crossman: Convenient to whom?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Convenient for the purpose of the control room and the whole system of civil defence.

Mr. Crossman: With land telephone lines?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: It all depends on the particular circumstances. It is perfectly true that if they are in a place where they are likely to be put out of action—

Mr. Crossman: I must press the Under-Secretary on this.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I recognise that in some cases control rooms above ground might not be effective in war.

Mr. Crossman: In war?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Yes, but they are useful in stimulating interest; they have a very definite value; and it would be wrong to abandon them altogether.

Mr. Crossman: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me one more question?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: No.

Dr. Morgan: Why be afraid?

Mr. Strachey: Schedule them as ancient monuments.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of the operational organisation of civil defence and he asked about regional commissioners. He expressed the hope that the list will be kept up to date. Persons needed as regional commissioners in war would have to be men of great ability and standing. It is a heavy responsibility and it is necessary to choose between the risk of appointing them too late and the risk of appointing men now who might not be available when they were needed. This is a question which has been and which will be kept under continuous review. It has not hitherto been thought that the time has come to make these appointments, but headquarters have been earmarked and a nucleus of staff is available in the persons of the principal officers and skeleton staffs maintained at the regional offices. Certainly my right hon. and learned Friend will bear in mind the right hon. Gentleman's observations.
A great deal has been said during the debate about the commander-in-chief being appointed only on a part-time basis. What my right hon. and learned Friend said was that the appointment would be on a part-time basis in the first instance. This is not unprecedented. There is the exactly parallel case of General Dempsey, and in this instance, if it is found necessary to have a full-time appointment, it will be made. In the first place, however, it was thought that this should be a part-time appointment.

Mr. Summers: Will my hon. Friend allow me to interrupt him on a point which has attracted the attention of many hon. Members? Will he give an assurance that the appointment on a part-time basis will be of someone who could act full-time if that were necessary?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: My right hon. and learned Friend has indicated that that is his intention.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about emergency water supplies. As he pointed out, in the last war fixed pumps were installed on many of the bridges over the Thames and other rivers for the purpose of drawing water rapidly from the river to the fire. It is still thought that there may be room for arrangements of this kind, and many of those pumps are still in position. However, experiments are being made with other more mobile means of drawing water from rivers in order to avoid the disadvantage of fixed installations which may be put out of action. It is too soon to say whether these experiments will be successful, but they are part of the programme referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend, designed to supplement the resources available from the water in the permanent mains; in other words, here, too, the emphasis will be put on mobility rather than on fixed installations.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) spoke of the need for a review of full-time manpower on account of the competing needs. That is an important and interesting point but it is not concerned with civil defence alone. Indeed, the very suggestion indicates that it extends over a much wider field. I will bring the suggestion to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour, because it is a matter for him to consider.
My hon. and gallant Friend spoke of the R.A.F. men who will have two periods each of a fortnight's training, and he asked what they would be doing at weekends. I am not certain what he had in mind, but I understand that the R.A.F. men in question, who have the obligation under the National Service Acts to have training during those two fortnights would have no further obligation. If my hon. and gallant Friend has some specific point in mind, perhaps he will write to me?
My hon. and gallant Friend made two other points about the difficulty of training in driving, particularly after dark with no lights. He also spoke of the need for the use of, and training in, wireless. Those are points which we have noted. These men, of course, will not come com


pletely untrained. Although they will have had no training in civil defence, they will have had some general training in their period of service with the R.A.F. which will be useful.
The right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) said, "Let civil defence share in conscription." He suggested that civil defence would be only taking the R.A.F. mistakes, to use his own words. The Bill which is now in another place is quite general in terms and I am glad to hear, therefore, that those terms have the approval of the right hon. Gentleman. No doubt he will give the Bill his support when it comes to the House of Commons.
The right hon. Gentleman also drew attention to the fact that in West Bromwich there was only 25 per cent. of the establishment of volunteers. I believe that that figure is approximately accurate. Nevertheless, including West Bromwich, the national average is 65 per cent. I can only suppose that the right hon. Gentleman has not been using his oratory to good effect in his own town.

Mr. Albu: Could we have the average in cities only?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The average in the cities is just over 60 per cent. I think that the highest of all is Coventry.

Mr. Crossman: Now the Committee knows the truth. That is despite the Government.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The lowest is Birmingham. If any hon. Member wants to see the figures, I will obtain them.
The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) spoke of structural precautions in new buildings. Applicants for building licences have been encouraged by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works to do the necessary work. Since the decision was made to ask that this work should be undertaken nearly half those approached have agreed to make the necessary structural reinforcements. Approximately 10 per cent. of the cases have refused, and the rest are outstanding.

Mr. Albu: With no reimbursement?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Yes, without reimbursement. It is voluntary. The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg)—

Mr. Wigg: Before the hon. Gentleman passes to me, will he be kind enough to answer the small point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman)?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The hon. Member for Coventry, East made a wide-ranging speech which might have been more suitable for a general defence debate than a civil defence debate, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary gave an effective answer to that speech before the hon. Member delivered it.
The hon. Member for Dudley suggested that all young men should receive compulsory civil defence training.

Mr. Wigg: I did not say anything of the kind. I said that all National Service men should be given civil defence training as part of their National Service.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I accept that. I had no intention of misrepresenting the hon. Member. If I had added, "during the course of their National Service" I should have been literally exact. I think that the hon. Member's purpose was that these young men should become volunteers in the Civil Defence Corps after completing their service. That is an interesting suggestion. It is a novel one and, of course, it will receive due consideration. If I may say so without going beyond the bounds of order, it will be open to the hon. Member to make his proposal when the Bill which is now in another place comes before the House of Commons.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon asked about the vehicles which would be required by mobile columns. I think the answer is that there will have to be a build-up of vehicles in the first place for training purposes. The columns do not yet exist and cannot come into existence until the Bill is passed—in other words, until some time next year. There will have to be a build-up of the necessary training stock and then the necessary operational stock. My hon. and learned Friend also asked about the vehicles which would be used for carrying food in the early stages of a war. I think the answer is that such vehicles would not be part of the Civil Defence Service at all, but part of the general defence arrangements of the


country and quite outside the sphere of civil defence.
The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) asked about responsibility for training in Scotland. The school at Tay-mouth is run by the Home Office. The supervision of the training of the Civil Defence Corps in Scotland is handled by the Scottish Home Department on the basis of the Home Office technical manuals and other guidance given by the Home Office. The cost of Taymouth Castle is slightly higher than corresponding costs in England because the intake is smaller and the situation less convenient.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves Scotland—

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The time is getting very late—

Mr. Hughes: Scotland has not had any time.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The hon. Member for Lincoln asked about gas. Elementary training in chemical warfare is given to all members of the Civil Defence Services and selected members are trained to a much higher level. In particular, Technical Reconnaissance Officers, who are holders of science degrees or equivalent professional qualifications, are provided at university courses with information about the latest forms of war gases. A vapour detector kit for use in detecting gases in the field has now been devised and prototype models are available for defence training. The production of these kits on a scale large enough to enable training to be given to a much wider extent is now under way. Local authorities are now being issued with a quantity of new civilian respirators for use in training.

Mr. Ede: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman is not going to say a single word in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), who made a speech which at any rate was both provocative and well-informed as to the local situation?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I think that almost everything I have said has been in effect an answer to that speech.

Mr. Crossman: If the hon. Gentleman were to say that in Coventry, he would "get the bird."

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The hon. Member for Lincoln also asked about industrial Civil Defence and radiac equipment. The difficulty about radiac equipment is that, unlike other training equipment, it has to be more delicate than the operational equipment because it is impossible to experiment with doses which might prove dangerous. Therefore, the equipment has to be more—

It being Ten o'Clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

CIVIL DEFENCE (CASUALTY COLLECTION)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Draft Civil Defence (Casualty Collection) Regulations, 1954, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved."—[Miss Hornsby-Smith.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The debate which has just been concluded has been carried on on the assumption that Scotland does not exist, that we have no need for civil defence Regulations and that generally speaking all the difficulties that have been encountered in England do not apparently exist so far as Scotland is concerned. Although we have not the Home Secretary in charge of our civil defence, we have a Minister whom we have no reason to believe is more energetic or more able to resolve the contradictions of civil defence than the Minister in England.
I do not see why there should not be the fullest possible explanation to the House as to how these Regulations, dealing with the problem of casualty collection should not be fully explained to the House, because the debate that has just taken place fills us with great alarm and great despondency. The substance of these new Regulations is that the local authorities shall be instructed to supply information about casualties. This Statutory Instrument says that the business of the local authorities will be:
to supply the Minister with information of their requirements in respect of stretchers, material and equipment for the purpose of putting such plans into operation, or for the purpose of such training as aforesaid, and an estimate of The extent to which their existing


stocks thereof need to be supplemented for the purpose of meeting their estimated requirements.
We should first have a really serious attempt by the Minister to explain these Regulations. It is not good enough to have Regulations affecting the civilian population and what might happen to that population in the event of air raids carried in this House just by a nod. Imagine an instruction of this kind coming to any local authority in the centre of London.
We have just been told by the Home Secretary that if a hydrogen bomb drops an area of 10 square miles will be affected—

Mr. Ede: A radius of 15 miles.

Mr. Hughes: Imagine the predicament of a local authority that happens to be within that radius. What is to happen, for instance, when the City Council of Westminster and the local authority of Clapham, where I live when I am in London, have to answer questions about what their provisions are for dealing with casualties? Judging from the statements made today, all the areas within a radius of 15 miles will have to say that their whole populations are problematical casualties. We have heard comments today about shaking the morale of the country. This will be the greatest predicament for the City of London since the Great Plague. The time when they sent round the carts and cried, "Bring out your dead" will be nothing compared with what is likely to happen after one of these air raids. Apparently, according to the statements made today, the Government have no adequate measures to deal with this matter.
What is a casualty? Is it a person who is killed or a person who is injured? I am interested, because I wish to know what is likely to happen to great industrial cities like Glasgow. We have had no opportunity to question any responsible Minister about civil defence in the West of Scotland. We are interested about what is likely to happen in big seaports in England, because the same may happen in Scotland. Although it is not clear whether these Regulations apply also to Scotland, we are con

cerned about what is likely to happen to great seaports following an air raid.
I can imagine members of the City Council of Glasgow, communicating with the City Council of Liverpool to know what reply Liverpool proposes to make on this question of casualties, so that they may know what sort of answer to give. I submit that the Minister is placing an intolerable burden on local authorities. The assumption has been that the seaports of this country will be destroyed. One hon. Member suggested that the sensible thing would be to establish a series of Mulberry Harbours round the coast. I am interested to know what will happen to the civil population in the meantime.
The Minister is sending out these instructions to county councils and borough councils. They are asked what preparations they are making for casualties. How cart a borough council in London or in a city like Coventry, answer such a question? When local authorities endeavour to get such information from the speeches of the Home Secretary and the Joint Under-Secretary, they will come to the conclusion that this is a question which it is impossible to answer. I do not think that the Minister of Health has been able to face up to this question at all.
Let me give an illustration from Scotland. As a result of a civil defence exercise in Glasgow, it has been estimated that if an atom bomb fell on that city every hospital would be put out of action.

Mr. Speaker: I doubt whether these Regulations apply to Scotland at all.

Mr. Hughes: I am thinking, Sir, of Bristol and Cardiff and Liverpool.

Mr. Speaker: Then I think that the hon. Member ought to speak of the cities of which he is thinking.

Mr. Hughes: I was using as an illustration the city with which I am familiar in order to picture the situation likely to result in Bristol. Swansea, Liverpool. Newcastle-on-Tyne, London and Southampton. If Glasgow is ruled out as of no consequence and Scotland is regarded ac., not worthy of discussion in civil defence, I will bring the question back to Liverpool.
The civil defence exercise in Glasgow illustrates what might happen in Liverpool. The civil defence authorities in


Glasgow have estimated that every hospital in the city would be destroyed. Where would the casualties—the dead and the wounded—be taken? These thoughts have not entered the minds of the Ministers who are supposed to be responsible for what is called civil defence. Presumably this is an attempt to face the very ghastly problem of how to deal with the dead, but until one has found out whether the Home Office is to sanction deep shelters, one cannot assess the number of casualties.
Any intelligent local authority will ask, "What is to be done about air-raid shelters"? If there are not to be any air-raid shelters and no specially protected basements and cellars, there are likely to be more casualties. The number of dead and wounded will vary according to such circumstances. Until such questions as these are answered, it is impossible to give the information required in this Statutory Instrument.
Then the question of whether we are likely to have casualties from gas must be taken into consideration. In the Civil Defence Estimates there is a very large sum for a very large number of respirators, so the Government are thinking in terms of gas. If that is so, any local authority will say, "If we are to be supplied with respirators, there is a possibility of attack by gas. How are we then to estimate the number of potential casualties from gas?"
An hon. Member has raised the question of casualties from other causes. It is well known that in the last war preparations were made for the possibility of germ warfare. Any member of any intelligent local authority thinking in terms of potential casualties will ask, "How are we to cope with the possibility of casualties from germ warfare?" We all know that the Government have been making certain experiments with bacteria away in a different part of the world. Nobody for a moment would say that the Government were conducting these experiments for the purpose of offence. They are only being conducted, like the dropping of atom bombs, in order to save human life. But we would like to know whether this country, like other countries, will have to face the problem of deaths from bacteriological warfare. I see that one of the villains of the piece—the Minister of Supply—is here. He may know some

thing about what may happen to this country in the event of germ warfare being carried out.
I presume that if there were no danger of germ warfare, the Minister would not be carrying out these experiments. But suppose other countries are carrying out germ warfare experiments, too. They may be doing that to enable them to carry out a reprisal for what we may do. Any local authority that is thinking realistically of the next war, and not in terms of the façade that has been built up by the Home Secretary, will say, "If there is going to be war against which we must protect the civil population, what is the possibility of germ warfare?"

Mr. F. A. Burden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not the hon. Gentleman going right outside the strict terms of these Regulations?

Mr. Speaker: I was listening to the hon. Member. He was talking about casualties, and so far as I can make out, he was still in order. But he ought really to confine himself more strictly to the subject matter which is before the House.

Mr. Hughes: I was not aware that I had strayed one iota. I have listened to the debate today, and I presume that when we talk about casualties we mean casualties—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must not fall into the error of supposing that this is the same debate as that which has gone on in Committee of Supply.

Mr. Hughes: I am perfectly aware that what we are debating is the Statutory Instrument, a copy of which I have in my hand, and I presume that if I had digressed the rules of order before now, you would conscientiously have carried out your duty, Mr. Speaker, and drawn my attention to it.
I maintain that if the local authorities are going to be asked to supply information to a Government Department, they should do so in a spirit of realism, knowing what is going on in the world and knowing that our Government are very interested in bacteriological warfare, and that if our Government are interested in bacteriological warfare, some potential enemy is also interested in it and we ought to have some statement about what defensive measures the Government contemplate.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is now going a little wide of the Regulations. The Regulations provide for the collection of casualties in any future emergency of this character. That does not really carry with it a discussion of all possible forms of aerial warfare.

Mr. Hughes: I am talking about casualties, and I am assuming that if there is the sort of war which Her Majesty's Government contemplate, bacteriological warfare will be carried out, and if that is so, there will be casualties.

Air Commodore A. V. Harvey: Why does the hon. Member assume that this type of warfare will be carried out, when gas was not used in the last war? Secondly, will he say whether he is in favour of more or less civil defence arrangements?

Mr. Hughes: I shall certainly answer those questions. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman has read the Estimates, be will realise that the Government expect casualties as a result of gas warfare, and are preparing for them.

Air Commodore Harvey: They did that in the last war.

Mr. Hughes: That may be so, but if the hon. and gallant Member does not think that gas will be used in the next war, he should censure his Government for spending public money unnecessarily.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps I can explain my view of the hon. Member's speech by saying that he ought to confine his argument to saying whether or not he is in favour of local authorities making plans for the collection and disposal of casualties.

Mr. Hughes: I am much obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, for telling me how I should confine my arguments. What I am trying to get from the Government is a clear statement of their policy, in order to assess their arguments.

Mr. Frederic Harris: If the hon. Member sits down, he will get the answer.

Mr. Hughes: I am asking very reasonable questions, to which the Minister should try to give reasonable answers. I want to know how the Minister expects local authorities to estimate what casualties they expect from hydrogen

bomb attacks, bacteriological attacks and any other kinds of attacks. Until they are told how to do that, local authorities will be completely bewildered as to the way in which they should answer this complicated question. If local authorities are to do their duty, they must approach this matter in a spirit of common sense and realism.
If the Parliamentary Secretary gives us anything like a clear answer to these questions, she will earn the admiration of the House. We shall admire her capacity and ability to face the problem more than we can possibly admire the statements presented to the House today by the Home Secretary and tin Joint Under-Secretary.

10.23 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), with his usual somewhat gay versatility, has made a speech primarily for his constituents in Scotland on the subject of Regulations which concern only England and Wales. I assure him that I appreciate his very deep concern for local authorities, but I can say that they are nothing like so confused about the Regulations as he appears to be, because they have already agreed to them.
These Regulations provide a small, narrow, but very important addition to that part of the civil defence organisation for which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health is responsible. They are made necessary by the development of atomic and hydrogen weapons. As a result of very close and intensive studies and exercises in the civil defence organisation we have been shown the necessity for an increasing strength in the stretcher-bearer and first-aid services. It is in -that narrow field of the civil defence organisation that these Regulations apply.
Should there be a heavy attack from atomic weapons it is clear that large areas might be made inaccessible to wheeled vehicles. It would, therefore, be very necessary to have much larger numbers than were formerly contemplated of stretcher-bearers, who would be needed for the difficult and possibly protracted task of carrying stretcher cases to ambulance loading points. The present service does not provide the additional personnel necessary for what would be, if


I may coin a phrase, "long carries." The personnel of the rescue service will give first aid to persons trapped in debris, but there will be need to give first aid to untrapped stretcher cases and possibly also to people who having been trapped, have been rescued but cannot be immediately moved because vehicular transport is not available. There will also be need for stretcher bearers with mobile first aid units and for personnel to load and unload ambulances and, for personnel to load and unload ambulance trains at railheads.
These Regulations require county and county borough councils to make plans for the provision of a service for the collection and removal of casualties resulting from hostile action. To that end they are empowered by the Regulations to train members of the Civil Defence Corps in stretcher bearing and first aid duties. The services will be operated in conjunction with the ambulance services at present operated by the local authorities. The present ambulance section of the Civil Defence Corps will be expanded under this plan and will be renamed the Ambulance and Casualty Collection Team Section.
It would not be practicable even in wartime to recruit to the reconstituted section all the stretcher bearers that might be required in the event of a heavy attack on any particular area. It is, therefore, proposed that new members of the expanded branch of the civil defence services should form the nucleus of a body of stretcher bearer leaders who would be trained and ready to organise members of the public, who, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) pointed out in the earlier debate, would pour in in the event of an emergency. It would be essential to have trained leaders to direct them whither they could be of the best service.
The Minister of Health and the Home Secretary have consulted the appropriate local authority associations, the St. John Ambulance Brigade and the British Red Cross Society who do so much for the training of these volunteers in first aid work. They have their agreement to and full support for these Regulations. When the Regulations have been approved instructions will be sent to county and county borough councils explaining the measures to be taken, and for training

personnel necessary to enable the authorities to carry out their functions.
I should hate entirely to disappoint the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, and, perhaps, I may be permitted to explain, on the authority of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the difference which arises in the Scottish system. In Scotland, there is no ambulance section of the Civil Defence Corps, and the ambulance service is the responsibility of the regional hospital boards, who would not be in as favourable a position as local authorities to recruit additional volunteers needed to act as stretcher bearers—

Mr. James H. Hoy: On a point of order. During the earlier debate, as you will probably be aware, Mr. Speaker, no Scottish Member, with one exception, was allowed to take part. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) in his first-class speech just now, asked whether he might use as an instance the case in Glasgow, comparing it with that in England. There was some doubt whether he was in order.
The Parliamentary Secretary has just made an announcement. She says she has been empowered by the Secretary of State for Scotland to explain the position of the Scottish ambulance services in connection with these Regulations, which we have just been informed by you, Mr. Speaker, apply to England and Wales only. What I should like to know is whether the hon. Lady is in order, and, if so, if it will be in order for other Members to discuss the Scottish position.

Mr. Speaker: I think not. These Regulations have nothing to do with Scotland, as far as I can make out, and all reference to Scotland is out of order.

Mr. Hoy: So your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, is that the Parliamentary Secretary is out of order as well?

Mr. Speaker: I think so.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. It makes my task much easier to leave the hon. Member for South Ayrshire in ignorance.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Austen Albu: This is one more of the matters to which the Select Committee on Estimates drew attention and as a result of which the Regulations have been brought forward.


The Parliamentary Secretary said that all those who had been consulted—the local authorities and the voluntary bodies—had all agreed that this was the best way to do the job. I hope that that is the case, but I still hope, nevertheless, that this matter may still be kept under review, together with all other matters concerned with the organisation of the operational forces of civil defence. It seems to me—and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) was not quite so wide of the mark as may have appeared in the earlier debate—that this may not be the right way of doing this job.
As the hon. Lady herself said, the ambulance services are services mainly on wheels carrying the wounded to hospitals. The target area will be anything from about three to 30 miles across, and undoubtedly it will not be possible to get to the wounded who will be buried, except with the help of the rescue services. I wonder very much whether this service ought not to be much more closely tied up with the rescue service than with the ambulance service.
As the hon. Lady has told us that all those who are most concerned have agreed, I must take it that there has been very full consideration. Nevertheless, in view of the reconsideration now taking place of the whole of our civil defence arrangements, I hope that the matter will be kept under consideration. It shows how extraordinarily complicated and difficult our whole civil defence arrangements are that this matter, which is so closely linked with the work of rescue, has to be dealt with by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, whereas the rescue services are, presumably, the responsibility of the Home Secretary. This division of responsibility makes the whole arrangements and Regulations of this kind extraordinarily difficult.
I only hope that the matter will be kept under continual review and that we do not have to stick to this arrangement if the tactical exercises which are carried out and the review of civil defence that takes place next year show that it is a quite impracticable arrangement.

10.33 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: When I first saw the Regulations, and even before, this matter had been mentioned to me by friends, and I have had letters on the subject from people who lived in cities that were blitzed during the last war. I have been told that we must now mention Scotland, but as I happen now to live in Glasgow I have had people talking to me from Clydebank, which was badly blitzed, and I have had letters from friends in Birmingham, which was also blitzed during the last war.
Regulation 2 (a), which relates to county boroughs and boroughs, states that it is
to make plans for the provision in the event of hostile action or a threat of hostile action of a service for the collection and removal of casualties resulting from hostile action …
Questions have been posed to me that there is no provision in the Regulations for what is to be done with the casualties that are collected. I have had about five letters on the subject. It is all right to provide for collecting casualties, but what is to become of them? The London County Council and all the county boroughs can have all their plans and their ambulance services, but the Home Secretary has told us tonight that a hydrogen bomb dropped on the centre of London would have a destruction area of a radius of 15 miles, or 30 miles in diameter; so that all these plans for collection within the City of London would very likely be completely destroyed.
What is the capacity of small boroughs outside London to maintain a service for collecting and removing casualties to a suitable area where they can be treated? How are we to treat a city like London, with its 8 million people, which one hydrogen bomb could almost completely destroy over a radius of 15 miles? It is impossible to conceive of how local authorities around Scotland could, independently and individually, provide an ambulance service or a stretcher bearer service as would be required under such conditions from, say, Croydon to London. Or, it might be from Haslemere, working into the centre of London.
That would mean passing over 15 miles of rubble before these stretcher bearers could get to the scene of their work. Why, we should need to have bulldozers in use before the stretcher bearers could move! Then, of course,


there would be gamma rays floating around, and if there had been an explosion over the Thames, millions of gallons of water would have been thrown up, and would be falling down; and that would be radioactive. What is the use of stretcher bearers in all these terrible circumstances?
I say that it is entirely unrealistic to think in terms of this number of people who would be able to get from the perimeter to the centre, on foot, to carry out casualties on stretchers.

Sir W. Darling: I think it was done at Ypres, in 1917.

Mr. Bence: If that is what the hon. Member thinks, and if we are to have a battlefield in every city in Britain, are we to rely on the civil population after the battles of London, Birmingham, and Glasgow? I should have thought we should have needed assistance from the Royal Army Medical Corps, and the Royal Ordnance Corps.
Is this to be a service merely to collect the casualties of hydrogen bombs, or bacteriological bombs, or poison gas? I ask that because there is nothing in these Regulations about where the casualties will be placed. [An HON. MEMBER: "In hospital."] Somebody says, "In hospital," but I can imagine the position in South Wales. Supposing the coastal towns, Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport, were badly damaged by hydrogen bombs, there would be very little hospital accommodation. Where would those victims be taken? There would be no room in houses, and hospitals there already have long waiting lists. It is no use the Government bringing in these proposals unless we are to be told where the casualties would be taken.

Mr. Paul Williams: Down the mines?

Mr. Bence: In Birmingham, during the last war, there was a terrific problem in accommodating those who had been injured.
Let us just try to imagine what the position would be after a hydrogen bomb explosion. It would be infinitely worse, and I say that it would be better for the Minister to withdraw these Regulations until such time as the House can be told how the casualties are to be treated after collection. This is like a draft Regulation on the collection of refuse; there is

not even a hint as to how the casualties are to be treated. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) spoke about bacteriological warfare, and high explosives, and gas, as well as the hydrogen bomb, and I would reiterate that there will be casualties of many different types. There might conceivably be a hydrogen bomb explosion, the dropping of bacteria, and a gas attack all at the same time, and, with the resulting contamination, people would have to be isolated from those with different injuries.
There will have to be a plan so that, if there is a "bacteriological ring," that area can be isolated and the people in it not mixed up with those suffering from shrapnel wounds.

Mr. Speaker: I am not sure if the hon. Member is arguing against the Regulations or not. Is he saying that the casualties should not be collected?

Mr. Bence: No, Sir, I want the wounded to be cleared, but what I am saying is that these Regulations are insufficient for the purpose in view.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is there any precedent for Mr. Speaker arguing with an hon. Member?

Mr. Speaker: There is no precedent at all, but so far as I am aware no hon. Member has argued with me.

Mr. Bence: What I am arguing is that these Regulations are incomplete. It is not sufficient to tell the people that if they are injured they will be collected. It is not good enough to say to the public, "If there are heavy air raids you will be collected." The public want to know that if they are injured they will be treated adequately. In view of the present shortage of hospital accommodation, and the fact that in war-time many hospitals will be destroyed, the people are wondering whether these Regulations really mean anything.
The other matter which concerns me is that it is not right to throw this tremendous task back upon the local authorities. I take the view that if, unfortunately, we are dragged into war by any foreign Power, then in this country it will be really totalitarian war. There will be no question of any ad hoc organisation. Every able bodied man and woman will have to be conscripted—

Mr. Speaker: Surely that is going far beyond the Regulations, which make provision for the collection of casualties. The hon. Member is now dealing with a much wider topic and it cannot be supported by the Regulations now before the House.

Mr. Bence: I am sorry if I am out of order, but I sometimes find it difficult to keep in order, Sir. What I was dealing with was this responsibility for the maintenance of the organisation for the collection of the wounded being put on the local authorities. I take the view that in a future war, if we are unfortunate enough to be dragged into one, there will have to be a national organisation covering the whole of Britain that the State, in the event of war, would have to take over civil defence and treat it like a military operation. It could not just rely upon the local authorities. The areas of destruction will be so big in the cities where the capacity of the organisation is so great. I dare say the L.C.C. or the Glasgow Corporation, with their huge organisations, could do this work, but the areas over which they have control are the areas which will be destroyed.
The smaller local authorities, like county boroughs, with their limited financial resources and restricted hospital services would not be in a position to provide these services for the large cities. It should be the function of the Ministry of Health to provide adequate services throughout the country for the treatment of casualties and other services and the onus should not be placed upon the local authorities.
As was said in the last debate, there is too much tendency to think in terms of the blitzes of 1940 to 1943. Surely we are all agreed that if this happens, and the hydrogen bomb has been threatened and it may be used, there will be nothing left of this sort of organisation in our large cities. The large cities will depend entirely on the small boroughs and counties who will never build up sufficient equipment on their own initiative.

Mr. E. G. Willis: This is in the case of a concentrated attack which means more than one bomb.

Mr. Bence: That makes it worse.
If two or three bombs are dropped on London, and London has the biggest

services for collecting casualties, and London is wiped out, then the casualties will never be collected—unless the services in London are duplicated outside London. That means duplication. We do not want the services inside London. We want services around London and outside London and those local authorities are not in the position efficiently to build up services of collection and the treatment of the inhabitants of the City of London if the City of London had a concentrated attack by hydrogen bombs.
I suggest that the Department takes back these Regulations because they have come as a frightful shock to many people. It is said that they are over sensitive about the phrase "collection of casualties" and removing them. People know the hospital situation. I was told only this week of someone waiting four months to get into a London hospital.
If the Minister cannot withdraw these Regulations, I hope that he will at least do something to allay the fears of many people that this is too casual and seems rather like a document from a refuse department to say that refuse will be collected. I think that the Regulations are badly drafted and not likely to raise the morale of the people or show the Government's intention to protect and look after the civilian population in case of war.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. Reader Harris: I would have thought that these Regulations dealt only with the collection and removal of casualties and no question of to where they were removed. In the event of war, emergency hospitals are built. A large number were built in the last war; huts are put up in the country areas and they provide the places to where casualties are removed. I agree, however, that it is a pity that we have a Minister of Health answering on Regulations when we have had the Home Secretary answering on it, also. The sooner we have a Minister of Civil Defence answering the better.
The Regulations say:
It shall be the duty of every local authority, at the request of and in accordance with the directions of the Minister—

(a) to make plans for the provision in the event of hostile action or a threat of hostile action of a service for the collection and removal of casualties resulting from hostile action … 


(b) to train members of the Civil Defence Corps whose services are made available for the purpose in stretcher bearing and first-aid duties to be performed in connection with the discharge of functions under these regulations …"
I take the view that the sooner everybody is trained in these duties the better it will be for all of us because the people who will be trained in the Civil Defence Corps may be wiped out if large areas are wiped out with the hydrogen bomb. We heard earlier about the dropping of this bomb on Charing Cross setting fire to Epsom Grand Stand. In that case, the number of casualties will be so colossal that it will be well beyond the Civil Defence Corps and I have long pressed for all the population to be given civil defence training, particularly in first-aid. It may cost money but I have great sympathy with what was said earlier in the day by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), that we are spending only £29 million on civil defence as against £1,500 million on weapons of offence, and the sooner we can get a good deal of it shifted to civil defence, the better.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. James H. Hoy: I am intervening in this debate because of the interjection of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), who was asking where the casualties were to be taken. The hon. Gentleman suggested that they should be taken down the mines. I do not know whether he would like to withdraw that?

Mr. P. Williams: It was not intended in the serious way the hon. Gentleman took it. I merely made the interjection in a critical sense towards the hon. Gentleman who was speaking because it seemed to me obvious that, if there were casualties, they would be taken to wherever they could be treated at the time.

Mr. Hoy: That is very different from what the hon. Gentleman was saying at the time, because my hon. Friend was arguing that very point. Indeed, if one looks at paragraph 2 (b), it is clear that not only are people to be trained in stretcher-bearing but, as I am sure the Minister will agree, in rendering first-aid treatment as well. So it is obvious from

the wording of the Regulations that some place has to be provided to take the casualties; otherwise there is no sense in collecting them.
Secondly, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey) objected to the examples used by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). He suggested that there might not be casualties from gas warfare as gas was not used in the last war. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to paragraph 2:
It shall be the duty of every local authority, at the request of and in accordance with the directions of the Minister—(a) to make plans for the provision in the event of hostile action or a threat of hostile action …
I am certain that this sentence covers every type of case that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire mentioned. Preparations were made against gas in the last war; in fact all of us spent hours of our time in such preparations and I myself had to undergo a course of training because of the threat of gas. That is what the Minister is seeking to do in these Regulations, to take into consideration every possible type of action from which casualties might arise, and he is asking that local authorities should make an estimate of the number of casualties. I am certain that the Minister would not deny it.
When it is suggested that my hon. Friend might have been wrong in raising his points as these Regulations apply to England, all I can say is that we have had a long debate today on civil defence, when none of my hon. Friends were called on, neither were hon. Gentlemen opposite who represent Scottish Divisions. Yet the House will appreciate from the contributions that have been made now that Scottish Members could have made a useful contribution to that previous debate. So we shall expect a short reply from the Minister to the questions we have asked tonight, first as to whether my hon. Friends were not right in raising these points, and secondly, what preparations local authorities are expected to make at the request of the Minister to provide emergency hospitals or temporary accommodation at which these casualties will be treated.

10.54 p.m.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: If I may speak again, Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) has made it clear that he and some of his colleagues thought that, as they could not get into the previous debate, they might try to get into this one. With great respect, many of the points they have raised are not covered by these Regulations.

Mr. Hoy: Such as?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Such as the treatment of casualties in the Hospital Service. The Hospital Casualty Service and the plans for dispersing the hospitals during a war are part and parcel of major civil defence plans but are not any part of these Regulations. So far as these Regulations are concerned, they merely extend the Service in what I should have thought hon. Gentlemen opposite would have welcomed as a practical step resulting from the possible results of atomic warfare.
With the previous weapons of war it was possible to bring ambulances within reasonable distance of the casualties, and the staff trained as drivers and assistants to those ambulances knew that their casualties, in the main, were reasonably near to where their vehicles could come. New weapons have made it necessary for us to envisage a wider and larger field of stretcher-bearing staff, who would be trained in first-aid and stretcher-bearing in order that they could take casualties over a wider field, where it would not be possible for vehicles to go, to the ambulances waiting as near as possible for them to get to the site of the incident. This is a practical extension of the civil defence programme for which so many hon. Members have asked today. It has no direct bearing on the planning and evacuation and dispersal of the hospitals themselves.
I am appalled at the lack of confidence which hon. Members opposite appear to have in the local authorities. The local authorities who we are asking to carry out these services are the people concerned, interested in and attached to the problems of their local community—county boroughs and county councils—authorities who coped admirably with the

tasks confronting them in the similar services in the last war, and to which this is a very small addition of their existing services. Hon. Members opposite have agreed in the House, and agreed under the former Government, to these services being placed in the hands of the county boroughs and the county councils. This is but a very small extension of the ambulance services and the civil defence organisation placed under the local authorities.

Mr. Bence: That was before the hydrogen bomb.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I believe that this is a practical but important addition to the civil defence services—one which local authorities feel they can reasonably add to their programme, and, if hon. Members want figures, every local authority has its own target figure for its peace-time strength. We are asking target areas to increase the stretcher-bearing and first-aid services by 50 per cent. and the non-target and more distant rural areas by 20 per cent. of their peace-time target as a minimum peace-time strength under the programme outlined in these Regulations.
I hope very much that hon. Members will realise that this is a small but limited extension; that it has no bearing on the dispersal of the hospitals, which is quite a different matter provided for under other aspects of the civil defence service, and that, so far as the local authorities are concerned, they have signified their willingness to co-operate fully in this extension of the service in which, so far, they have whole-heartedly co-operated.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Casualty Collection) Regulations, 1954, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.

INDUSTRIAL INJURIES (MARINERS)

Draft National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Mariners) Amendment Regulations, 1954 [copy presented 16th June], approved.—[Mr. Turton.]

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT, CENTRAL SCOTLAND

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Sir Cedric Drewe.]

10.59 p.m.

Mr. John Taylor: We are now sure that it will be in order for at least, or at most, thirty minutes to speak about Scotland. We are also sure that the subject we are speaking about for these thirty minutes has bearing only if the horrible events we have been contemplating today do not take place.
The subject I have tabled for this brief Adjournment debate is that of the industrially declining areas in Central Scotland, and I propose to confine my review to problems in the North-East part of Lanarkshire, particularly the Shotts district, the contiguous South-West part of West Lothian, particularly the Fauldhouse area, the burgh of Bo'ness in West Lothian on the shores of the Firth of Forth, the Calders area in North-West Midlothian and the shale-oil district of West and Mid Lothian. My submission is that all these contiguous parts are single industrial communities in which the one industry which is the mainstay has declined. My argument is that it will be to the national advantage to arrest and reverse the decline where it has started and to endeavour to prevent it where it threatens.
The Minister may be tempted to quote the employment figures for these areas to prove that there is little or no unemployment, or that unemployment there is below the average for Scotland. That is true, but only because large numbers of the people in those areas travel outside the areas to their work. There are other reasons, but that is the most important.
I shall say little about the Shotts area, because the facts are well known to the Board of Trade. It is known that many of the pits in that district have become uneconomic and have ceased production. It is known that local iron works in Shotts and Newmains have closed down, and local residents fear that a continuance of this process will destroy the local communities. Local roots are deep in these communities. They have a strong, indeed, almost a fierce civic pride and local patriotism. There is a vigorous community life and spirit and a multitude of cultural, social and sporting associations. They are determined to maintain

and nurture their community, and they look to us for help.
Much the same may be said about Fauldhouse in my own constituency. There is, in addition to all these factors, some bitterness in Fauldhouse. I will not go into the history of the closing of the Knowes pit, because there is not time. It would serve no useful purpose and in any case it is not within the scope of the Minister. But Fauldhouse feels that it had a raw deal in the matter. Be that as it may, this is a district which needs some alternative industry as desperately as any place in the nation.
I come now to the town and port of Bo'ness, about which I have spoken on previous occasions. Here is a town huddled on to a narrow shelf of land which rises steeply from the sea within a very confined area which produces its own local problems. It has its dock and two pits, which are being concentrated into one developing pit extracting coal from beneath the sea. Modern specialist machinery is being installed because of the nature of the terrain and the pit's confined area. Ironically, the only place for the pit bing—slag is the word used in England—is the sea. Refuse from the pit must be dumped there, and already there is a huge hill. It grows steadily. Siltage from the bing is affecting the dock, which is becoming silted through the pit's developing operations. It is essential that the present dredging must be doubled—possibly trebled—if the clock is to retain its trade.
It is almost a miracle that the town has managed to survive the many threats to its existence during the past 30 years: but miracles cannot be expected to be the permanent norm. If they did, they would cease to be miracles. We ought to do something for this town as a Parliament and as a nation, What Bo'ness needs, above all else, is new industrial activity. There is a good supply of first-quality local labour. They are fine, solid, decent people in Bo'ness. It is a shame that so many of them should be forced to leave the town every working day to earn a living.
I have not time to discuss the shale oil industry, which affects areas of Mid and West Lothian, from the Calders to Queensferry on the Firth of Forth. I will seek the opportunity to do so in another debate. All I need say about it in this debate is that this is the world's


pioneer oil industry. Many of the devices used in the most modern plants for the production of oil in America, and else- where, do not surpass the inventions and processes used in my constituency, and its neighbouring constituency, for the production of diesel oil and petrol. There are doubts about the future of this Scottish industry. They may be unfounded; but it is fair to ask the Government either to give some guarantee for the future of this strategically important industry, or to consider the provision of alternative employment in an area where none exists.
Even in the developing areas, and we have some in the Lothians where pits are being opened and existing ones developed, there is an allied problem. The burgh of Whitburn is a case in point. There, there is one industry employing only male labour, for coal only employs men. After the Bill with which we were dealing last Friday becomes law there may soon be no females employed in the pits, or around them. I hope that that day is not far off. Although the coal industry here employs no female labour, nature sees to it that there is an adequate supply of females on the production line, and they need jobs. There are none for them in this area and they must travel many miles each working day.
What I have said outlines the problem I wish to raise. So far as I have been able to ascertain, the average annual value of new industrial buildings erected in the post-war years is £60 million, but approximately £10 million of that is for the extension of existing factories. The other £50 million represents new buildings for industries which can be sited in places where strategically, economically and socially they will do the most good. Only the other day the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Brooman-White) ascertained that £63 million was the value of buildings erected in the last year, which is about the average. If Scotland had her Goschen formula—her accepted proportion of the United Kingdom total—in these matters, it would mean that we should have about £5 million worth in new industrial buildings in Scotland each year. One-tenth of that proportion would solve most of our problems in the area which I have been discussing tonight.
The rules of procedure governing Adjournment debates do not allow me to advocate the need for strengthening the

Distribution of Industries Act. If they did, I should do so. I can mention the question only in passing, and say that I shall advocate it with vigour on some other occasion. So long as we must rely on persuasion, I hope that I have helped to convince the Minister and his Ministry that this great area has a special claim for new industries, that it is an area in which industries would have all possible facilities, including a good labour supply, and in which they would be likely to flourish. It would be a great encouragement to be assured of the Minister's understanding, support, and early positive action.
I have not time to develop all the many other aspects of the matter, because I want to leave a few minutes for other speakers, but I hope that as a result of my few remarks the Minister will have an increased understanding of the problem and will be encouraged to offer some assistance.

Mr. R. Brooman-White: To what extent, if at all, is the area to which the hon. Member has referred covered by Development Area procedure?

Mr. Taylor: I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) wants to deal with that point.

11.13 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. J. Taylor) on raising this important matter tonight. I am certain that he has the very best wishes of thousands of decent men and women in the area about which he has spoken. This is a matter which I have raised on many occasions in debates in this House. I dealt very fully with the position of the Shotts and Newmains area in the debate on Scottish industry last year. I want to use the few minutes that I have most generously been given by my hon. Friend in asking for some information from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
I can inform the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Brooman-White) that the area of which I speak is in a Development Area. There was a deputation that met Ministers in Edinburgh. The President of the Board of Trade was not present but some of his officials were, and so were officials of the Ministry of


Labour. Then we had an important deputation which I took to the Secretary of State for Scotland when it came to London. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade was present, and so was the Minister of Labour, and I felt from the discussions we had that day that those Ministers might be seized of the importance and the magnitude of the very great problem facing this area. In the debate on the 14th July last, the President of the Board of Trade said:
Let us try to influence or assist new industries to set up in those areas in order to take up any unemployment which might develop."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th July, 1953; Vol. 517, c 2089.]
Although perhaps the President of the Board of Trade was trying to be helpful that day those very words did show clearly that he is not fully aware of the real seriousness of this problem or, indeed, aware of the nature of it. Like my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian, I am not complaining of the unemployment that exists in this area.
My work for a considerable time now has been to try and get the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary of State for Scotland to realise that, unless they do some serious planning at this time, the future for that area is very hopeless indeed. We have discovered in the past two or three years that industries that have come from England under the scheme under the Act have set up subsidiary parts of their industry in Scotland and, whenever they find things difficult, the first part of their industry to close down is that part in Scotland. This has happened on a number of occasions. We can blame our industrialists in Scotland for not showing the foresight and initiative they might have done in the past, but in certain areas it is impossible for them to modernise their factories or to extend the premises. If they could have the same facilities as those which are given to industrialists from America and England it would be a very great help indeed. My own area of Shotts and the other places mentioned by my hon. Friend would be very suitable indeed for these industries.
I hope that if this debate has done nothing else tonight it has brought home to the Parliamentary Secretary and to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland that the worry is not tomorrow or the immediate future. The worry is what is going to happen in the future for

thousands and thousands of people in these areas when their industry is going to be extinguished completely.

11.19 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Henry Strauss): I should like to thank the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. J. Taylor) for the characteristic courtesy he displayed in giving me information on some of the topics he proposed to raise. Although they are topics common to his area, he has covered a fairly wide field, and he did so with great succinctness and clarity. I did not know that I should have the pleasure of hearing the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), but I met the deputation to which she referred and I have a fairly good memory of the topics then discussed.
I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Member for West Lothian said. The hon. Member spoke of a "single industry community," and in a good deal of the area that is a fair description. That undoubtedly causes certain problems, which he has described and with which we are familiar, and I do not have much quarrel with him about his description.
We should not underestimate or exaggerate the part that the Board of Trade or any Government can play through a distribution of industry policy; that must be kept in proportion. Both hon. Members, who have spoken, with characteristic skill but also fairness, said that they did not base their request tonight on existing unemployment. Nevertheless, I think they will agree that it has a certain bearing. When there is no power to direct an industry to a particular place—and the Board of Trade has power only to encourage such industries as are free to go to various places—what is generally called footloose industry—the question of unemployment is relevant in two ways.
First, if there is only a limited amount of industry on the move, it is rather natural to try to send it to those parts of the Development Areas where existing unemployment is the most serious. The second point is that the willingness of an industry to move to a particular area depends to a considerable extent on the labour supply that it expects to find there.
Both hon. Members covered their ground with great brevity, and I hope


they will forgive me if I do the same. They mentioned the coalmining problem and the problem of the declining coalfield, the problem of the shale oil industry, and generally the need for new industry and the fact that many people—and perhaps, particularly, many women—have to travel some distance to their work.
I agree with some of that description by the hon. Members. Of the 46,000 workers in the area, no less than 77 per cent. are men, compared with an average for Great Britain of only 66 per cent. By industries, they are 40 per cent. in coalmining, 11 per cent. in shale mining and oil refining and 11 per cent. in metal manufacturing and engineering, the remainder being divided among a variety of industries. Of the women employed, only about a quarter are employed in manufacturing industry.

Mr. J. Taylor: Is that in West Lothian alone?

Mr. Strauss: No, the wider area, West Lothian and the Shotts and Calder areas.
The hon. Member, quite rightly, put in the forefront of his argument the decline and the approaching exhaustion of the central coalfield. As he himself said, around Bo'ness, however, prospects are better. A new pit is being sunk at Kiniel. That development will increase up to 1965. But I think the hon. Member would agree that the main impact of the decline will fall on the area within a triangle bounded by Bathgate, Shotts and West Calder.
It is true that the miners rendered redundant in the declining area will be wanted elsewhere in the expanding coalfields in Midlothian and Fife. Nevertheless, I do not seek to minimise the problem. So far, I think that the closures have not meant a significant growth in unemployment.
On the shale industry, I shall not add to what has already been said this evening, because I think the hon. Member who initiated this discussion met my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland as recently as last Saturday in order to talk about the subject. Therefore, I do not think I need deal with this particular point. Both hon. Members have referred to the lack of employment for women, and although it is

true that there are textile firms in Bathgate, Shotts, and elsewhere, the number of women in employment is below the average. Women find that they must travel daily to Edinburgh or to the new light industries of Lanarkshire. On the question of Bo'ness, it is fair to remember that the principal cause of the decline of the port is a fall in the outgoing cargoes of coal, and the greatest improvement there would come from a revival in coal exports.
The unemployment figures which both hon. Members have mentioned, quite honestly, show that they do not base their plea in any way on existing unemployment. They plead, rather, for diversification, and the establishment of new industry, and with that view Her Majesty's Government are in full sympathy; but it is a plea which it is not easy to meet. The Government have not, however, been entirely unsuccessful in this matter. The Scottish Industrial Estates, as hon. Members are aware, have converted an ex-Government factory at Broxburn, and altogether have three new factories—at Bathgate, Broxburn, and Shotts. But, I do not attempt, nor do Her Majesty's Government, to minimise the problem. Diversification in an area where there is so much concentration on a single industry is naturally difficult, but we certainly desire to bring it about. But I do not wish to mislead the hon. Members concerned, nor the House, by saying too much about the industries we can influence to go to this area.
This particular problem is common to many parts of the Scottish Development Area. But to sum up by giving some of the brighter side of the picture, I would say that there are the expanding coalfields of Fifeshire and Midlothian, and there are some encouraging prospects at Bo'ness; and there is the industrial development which has taken place since the war by way of diversification, and, if it is practicable to encourage appropriate new industries in these areas by the granting of Industrial Development Certificates, we shall certainly do so. I assure hon. Members that this problem is very much in the mind of the Government.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.